Anna and I went for a hike today to Stissing Mountain and the Thompson Pond Nature Preserve. The entire area is owned by The Nature Conservancy and is really quite pretty. In addition to a very steep and challenging trail up Stissing Mountain to the fire tower, we hiked a 3 mile loop around Thompson’s … Stissing Mountain

Anna captured these tulips in front of the main house at Locus Grove.

Anna has a thing for trees. The more interestingly textured or grouped the better. This particular tree has really cool bark.

Perhaps I’ve already told you that Augustus likes to go walking on a leash. Perhaps you’ve lain awake at night wondering how I convinced a cat to accept a harness and leash. Well, your nights of sleeplessness are at an end. You’ll want the following ingredients: Harness The best harness I’ve found yet is the … Advice on Cat Walking

In addition to small streams, Locust Grove has numerous small architectural details that have fallen into decay. The preservation team has kept the main house and most of the outbuildings in good shape; but this fence beside the main walking path has seen better days.

The landscape of the Morse Estate, Locust Grove, is incredibly lush. Morse’s interest in landscape gardening really shows in the small details found along the walking paths, like this small stream.

In addition to gardens and walking paths, the Morse Estate has numerous flowering trees.

In one of the gardens, these tulips caught my eye. The flower in the foreground looked like it was struggling to grow as tall as the others. Next time, I’ll try to enhance the distance between them — to make the foreground blossom stand out more.

Everywhere you look you’ll find small streams. The prevalence of water greatly contributes the the lush look of Locust Grove.

In addition to fixing the layout bugs present in the previous version, this new design attempts to pay homage to the lush greenery of Spring in the Hudson Valley. It seems like only last week the trees were still barren; but now they all have leaves and blossoms. As we walk into the Village every … In Honour of Spring