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White Nose Syndrome, a fuzz that appears on bats’ noses, has migrated from Europe and is killing bats in droves. No one’s sure how the fuzz got into U.S. caves – the suspicion is that European cavers brought it in on their feet — but the cold-loving fungus is affecting the entire northeast and moving west. The authorities have responded by closing most bat caves in the Delaware Water Gap. So the Pocono Environmental Education Center built a simulation of a bat cave out of rebar, mesh and spray foam in what used to be the indoor swimming pool.
Allison Owczarczak (left), a caver and the center’s environmental education coordinator, gave tours of the pitch black cave on Nov. 20, the day the exhibit opened after a year and a half in the making.
Visitors donned headlamps and ducked through the serpentine crawl space to enter the cave, decorated with stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and rimstone, and outfitted with audio of bat noises.
Those light streaks (above) are the headlamps of the visitors as shown by a long camera exposure.
Photo by Robert Breese
If you see some one dressed up like an astronaut in his own back yard, he’s probably keeping honeybees for one or more of the following reasons. Honeybees (1) pollinate your garden (2) make honey and 3) have been decimated by colony collapse disorder for reasons no one knows.
But did you have any idea there were 419 other bee species native to New York? Me neither. I hazarded eight when Louise made me guess.
Entomology master’s student Louise Lynch, 27, curated a year-long bee exhibit at the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum in Cornwall to fill the gap in our collective knowledge.
There are pin specimens of leafcutter bees that make their nests from cut-up leaves or petals, and squash bees that have migrated north as more of us northerners have started planting members of the cucumber family.
The exhibit’s stars are the honeybees flying in and out of their glass-encased hive through a hole in the museum wall, collecting nectar and pollen to turn into honey and generally being endlessly fascinating.
At right, environmental educator Pam Golben discusses the exhibit with its target audience.
– Becca Tucker
Photos by Robert Breese
Two hundred and twelve guests gathered at long tables for the annual five-course Black Dirt Feast at Scheuermann Farms in Pine Island. The dinner was a celebration of and collaboration between top regional chefs and local farmers.
At left, Daniel Lemire, owner and chef of Chumley’s BBQ in Florida, plates braised short ribs. Four down, 208 to go. The ribs were from Lowland Farms in Pine Island.
It doesn’t get any more local than the flower arrangements, picked and arranged on-site by Sally Scheuermann.
The meal included grilled pork loin (right) prepared by chef Robert Stella, of the Glenmere Mansion in Chester; succotash by Cheryl Rogowski, of Rogowski Farm in Pine Island; and sweet free range chicken by John Christison, owner of Yesterdays Restaurant and Pub in Warwick.
Photos by Bruce Hunter
Who needs fossil fuels to stay warm when you can burn locally grown sawdust, dirty corn, wood chips and grass pellets? Warwick hosted a parking-lot demo to see the cutting-edge “pelletizer” that might be heating two of its public garages in the near future. Two Pine Island farmers have already committed to donating hay to feed the beast.
A government grant footed the bill for the demo. The town could save $7,000 on fuel each year to heat its Department of Public Works garage, and expects it would break even in five years.
Intrigued? Homeowners, too, can curl up next to glowing (odorless and smokeless) farm waste. A residential pellet boiler costs up to $10,000.
Some seriously sturdy craftsmanship was on display at the 15th annual Springfest Flower & Garden Show in Augusta.
The Sussex County Fairgrounds’ 5,000-square foot mahogany beam conservatory played host for a weekend to rock waterfalls, koi-filled ponds, stained arbors, gazebos and patios, horticultural and hydroponic displays, and hand hewn furniture that suggested a long winter in the shed.
Don Jameson, of Old Foundry Construction in Stillwater, showed off a bar counter and stools made from polished lumber that made us very thirsty for the whiskey that shares his name.
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