Category: More Logbook

Typical indecisive March weather: several days of convincing spring thaw interrupted by a winter relapse. A snowstorm moving up the coast promises to drop a foot of snow overnight. As if that wasn’t enough, a bit of flooding forecast for tonight after midnight: runoff and snowmelt meeting wind-driven storm surge and rising tide. 3.98′ tide…

With temperatures in the 50s this week, ice is leaving the Esopus Creek. Today, the open water attracted some visitors: a mixed flock of waterfowl numbering in the hundreds. Mostly Canvasbacks and Ring-neck Ducks. Over fifty Green-winged Teals. Two male Buffleheads and one female. Two pairs of Northern Shovelers. Faint cooing was audible from the…

The distance from the trailhead where I park my car to the front door of the lighthouse is a half mile. How do I get from point A to point B? There a numerous possibilities. For routes, the choices are the trail, the creek, and the cove. More often than not, I walk the trail.…

Today, a most unusual visitor arrived at the lighthouse, and he arrived by mail. In my mailbox was a large brown envelope. I opened it and found Stanley Lambchop inside. The envelope also contained a letter of introduction. The letter was from the second grade class at an elementary school in Schenectady, New York. The…

When I left for vacation, ice was just beginning to form in protected coves during cold nights. By the time I returned a week later, after several days and nights of temperatures in the single digits, the river had filled with ice. With the exception of the narrow channel maintained for commercial navigation, ice now…

The Christmas cactus in the kitchen window started blooming in mid-November. Today, it dropped the last of its pink blossoms. I suppose that makes it a “Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years” cactus.

Early this morning, I emerged groggy-eyed from the lighthouse. I noticed the icicles hanging from the bird-feeder, the result of freezing rain overnight. However, I did not notice the thin coating of ice on the ramp to the dock. I took one step onto the ramp and quickly accelerated. I slid the length of the…

On these unseasonably warm January days, small talk about the weather quickly shifts to big talk about climate change. It’s certainly on my mind as of late. In early December, I attended a conference in Poughkeepsie about the impacts of climate change on the Hudson Valley. Some of the information presented at the conference is…

A south wind blew out the fog this morning, wisping through the reeds and trees. When the fog bank cleared, a bald eagle appeared in the treetops. The sun also appeared from behind the clouds. By mid-afternoon, the thermometer outside the kitchen window read 70 degrees. The water temperature was 38 degrees.

A thick shroud of fog enveloped the lighthouse for most of the day today. Oftentimes, the fog was so dense that I could not even see the other side of the river. The air was completely still, and the surface of the water was mirror smooth. The fog broke briefly at sunset, and the golden…