Category: PEEC Blog
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A Family United by Bitterness
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident “Should I pull this? “No. It will have a nice little flower. Let it be.” We did. As it grew I recognized it as a familiar adornment at the side of roads. It is Yellow…
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Welcome, Little Foxes
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident The dogs were interested in the back of our neighbor’s shed. They did not bark, but were staring with ears up. They knew there was somebody there and wanted to meet them. I knew there…
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Mourning a Woodpecker
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Here is Topaz the mini Aussie looking through a large glass slider on our deck. Last week I was upstairs when I heard a definite but indeterminate “thud” followed by a loud barking frenzy. Topaz…
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Wasps in Spring
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Last week I saw two wasps on the laundry room floor. One was dead; the other injured or tired. They were brown paper wasps. I wrote about them in the fall. Only the females sting.…
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Too Soon, the Daffodils
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident The first daffodil shoots bursting above ground are usually a welcome sign of spring. But when these appeared on February 15, I was disturbed. That is way too early, disturbing rather than reassuring. I feared…
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Snail Noir
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident This is the biggest snail I’ve ever seen in the wild, if the sidewalk behind the Kalypso Bar in Honalei, Kauai can be considered wild. It was moving rapidly, by snail standards, across the sidewalk.…
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In a Land Called Honalei
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident I have returned from another part of the forest, the Hawaiian island, Kauai. We stayed five miles west of the coastal village of Honalei. Honalee was where “Puff the Magic Dragon” of the 1963 Peter,…
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Seeing a Cedar
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Sometimes you can’t see the trees for the forest. My eyes have glanced over this eastern red cedar countless times without really seeing it, until Topaz the Aussie gave it special attention. I noticed that…
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My Little Chickadee
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Until recently the dogs and I have been taking our morning constitutional in darkness. Last week was the first time the dawn greeted us. While the darkness was exquisitely quiet, the dawn brought a simple…
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Invasive Japanese Knotweed
Does invasive Japanese knotweed hurt the aquatic insects and bacteria of the Delaware River? By. Amy King, Dr. Jeanne Kagle, and Dr. Gregory Moyer Alliance for Watershed Education, Pocono Environmental Education Center, and Mansfield University of Pennsylvania The Intense Invader Have you seen tall, bamboo-like plants growing on roadsides and by the banks of a river…