Category: Nature

A Tornado-like wind event tears through Middle Saranac Lake Saturday, June 20th: My brother Ray watching from a safe distance as the DEC crew clears blowdown from Middle Saranac Lake’s site 63 after Ray rode out Thursday’s extreme wind event alone with his dog Pepper in the Bull Rush...

Giant Bullfrogs Trigger Memories of St. Regis Pond I was out in my Monroe Wildlife Area for my mid morning walk when a creature lurking in one of my ponds made me stop in my tracks. It was a gigantic bullfrog, at least five inches long. As it sat...

Exploring the uncharted high peaks wilderness terrain of AI. Yes, I know. A crusty old Adirondack Outlaw hack of a writer is the last person that anyone, myself included, would ever in a million millenniums expect to find penning a piece about artificial intelligence. And yet here I am....

It all began with a question from my daughter Abby last summer shortly after she purchased her new home. “Dad, do you think at some point you might be able to dig me a pond?” She’d finally closed on her new home and begun the moving in process by...

A Trail Camera Chronology Maybe it’s their rugged beauty. It might be their elusive mystique. Perhaps it’s that distinctively short bobbed cat tail. It could simply be their spots. Whatever the case, whenever a new image graces our Monroe Wildlife Area’s trail camera array, we feel blessed. There’s just...

My 2026 Arbor Day Story It’s become a Monroe Wildlife Area tradition. Each spring the month of April is tree planting season. 2026, however, I vowed would in one key way be different. With three decades of past years’ plantings established in ground, I was going to significantly cut...

Well, that’s it. Seven cedar post mounted signs installed in seven days. Now the Monroe Wildlife Area’s National Wildlife Federation “Certified Wildlife Habitat” status is official. It only took 35 years! Thirty five years spent clearing miles of tangled barbed wire and long since abandoned rusted farm debris remnants....

It seems most of the country is experiencing a record breaking heat wave. Not so the north country. With daytime temps in the 30s, overnight temps below freezing, and more snow in the forecast, as we head towards April, March is clearly intent on reinforcing its role as winter’s...

A Limerick Collection There once lived a lumberjack named Lefty Leroux Whose proper first name wasn’t Lefty but Lou One night Lou drained his flask Had a fight with his axe Rendering his right handed digits too few ********** One of the many exercises I’ve enjoyed throughout my career...

What the Hell Just Happened?!? A January 2026 Pictorial Retrospective ********** It all began innocently enough as we trekked towards the new year. All had been quiet on the western front as December ushered in winter. We got our first real snow near the end of the month. It...