Category: PEEC Blog
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Sometimes Gold Returns
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident When March arrived without a trace of spring, I began to look for subtler signs. I found some on the golden yellow of the pine siskin, applied as an accenting coat, streaked randomly along tail…
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Zen Woodsman
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Two cords of wood are stacked under our deck. This will get us through the winter and into the fall. Having enough firewood is a comfort. The delivery truck backed up our driveway, an impressive…
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Earth Tones
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident While driving home from the city last week, I noticed that the recent thaw allowed a rare winter landscape in colors other than white. The mountains glowed with rich browns, bright yellows and deep greens.…
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High Water Mark
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident This is Hornbeck’s Creek near my part of the forest, the day the temperature reached the mid-60’s. Three days before my thermometer registered -8. I’ve never experienced a more than seventy-degree change within three days. …
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Why did the Egret Cross the Road?
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Last week the Naif in the Forest was the Naif in Florida, but fear not, I have returned in time for the sub-zero weather. While basking in the very rainy but sixty degree grayness which…
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What Lies Beneath
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Our first autumn in the forest, my wife asked me to plant daffodils. I accomplished this several times in the suburbs. I dug my little trowel six inches into the ground, cleared a space slightly…
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As I See It
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Violet the Corgi is an avid, if easily distracted fetcher. When she wanders from the task, I fetch the ball. This is not easy, because the tennis ball is the same color as much of…
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Guess Who
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Yesterday I discovered a fallen tree that had been subject to serious recent excavation. There was a pile of uniform wood chips, as if they had been cut with a chisel. There were two holes…
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Captain of The Squirrel Patrol
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident This is a grey squirrel. For once I feel confident in my identification. This one is munching seeds fallen from our bird feeder. They can be destructive, eating away at vegetables, insulation or taking up…
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Enduring Beauty
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident These two photographs are of the same crop of turkey tail fungus, the lighter color taken on November 12 and the darker six weeks later. I think they also qualify as turkey tail mushrooms. They…