Category: PEEC Blog

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  My cousin Brad snapped a rare photo of a muskrat in the open at Maumee Bay State Park, a few miles east of Toledo on the shore of Lake Erie, where Brad and I grew…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Last fall a weakened brown paper wasp struggled on our basement floor. They are relatively harmless unless their nest is threatened. I gently nudged the wasp onto a piece of cardboard. It seemed to cooperate.…

Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  A platoon of cleomes is making its way from our shady garden fence to the light. It has taken years. The vanguard has advanced to the gravel driveway, where they thrive due to my weeding laxity. …

Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  I enjoy walking our dogs at sunrise, listening to the concert of the birds. One morning the sound changed, as though the first violin had been replaced by a car alarm. It was a rooster. That…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident This photograph is not an attempt at art, but rather to reveal the barred owl hiding in our neighbor’s trees. Among the most common owls in North America, they hunt small animals by sitting still,…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  Nobody names a child Mugwort. “Where the Mugwort Grows” is no state’s official song because it is a terribly invasive and homely weed that grows everywhere. Nobody wonders that it might be a flower.  It…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  Near our back door among a variety of unwelcome and uncultivated weeds I saw these beautiful buds on long, thin stems. “Is that a flower or a weed? It sure looks like a flower to…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  This moth spent an afternoon near our door. She seemed completely unshaken as I moved closer to take her photo. By the evening she was gone.  I went online to identify her. I searched “large…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  When we created a garden on top of the shale near our house, we arranged several shelves of large, stacked rock to hold the soil. The shelves, with numerous cracks, crevices and seams, have become…

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  Last year we seeded wine cap mushroom spores into wood chips near our shed. We hoped they would yield something by now, but no luck. We have learned to be patient, as the shiitake spores…