Category Archives: Bill’s Essays

On our two acres just outside of Apollo (Armstrong County, PA) we have a group of deer that Deborah and I enjoy watching very much. (Photo by John Carrel, Flickr). Now these deer do a number of things that are… Continue reading →

Spring is happening all around us! It’s very hard to keep up with the pace of change.The daffodils are are in full bloom, and the forsythia are in various stages of flowering. Entire neighborhoods and forest hollows are turning yellow… Continue reading →

Honeysuckle has always been one of my favorite “wild” plants. The back fence of the house I grew up in was overgrown by honeysuckle vines. I watched butterflies and hummingbirds tap its flowers for nectar and frequently picked and pinched… Continue reading →

Last year (May 2, 2007 email) I wrote about the hike that Deborah and I call the “Up and Over.” This hike begins in the main parking lot of the Roaring Run Watershed Association’s trail just outside of Apollo, and… Continue reading →

Deborah and I were out in our garden (or, more accurately, “weed patch”) this past Saturday taking advantage of the warm, sunny weather to get ready for our spring plantings. In the asparagus patch, as she was clipping off the… Continue reading →

Observations from three locations:Wednesday evening, April 9 out in front of my house just outside of Apollo: The first spring peepers of the season! As I have written out on the Spring Peeper species page on our Virtual Nature Trail… Continue reading →

Hiking out on the Rock Furnace and the Roaring Run Trails this past Sunday, Deborah and I saw several birds and flowers that announce the developing spring. Many of these early spring flowers are quite small. They add a faint… Continue reading →

The full moons of the year have long lists of descriptive names that reflect the occurrence of important ecological events that affected early human cultures and societies. Much has been written about the names given to these full moons by… Continue reading →

Deborah and I went out on the Rock Furnace Trail this afternoon. The sunshine masked a surprisingly cold day. The wind was quite brisk, too. Halfway down into the ravine the predicted evening clouds rolled in which made it feel… Continue reading →

A few new observations about the coming spring: 1. The silver maple at the bottom of my field flowered on March 13. The crown of the tree is fuzzy at a distance with the just opened red-brown flower buds. Close… Continue reading →