The Removal of Kingston’s Sidewalk Canopies Reveals a Time Capsule – The New York Times
The First Day of Spring
In rural Upstate New York, the arrival of spring is not a visual explosion of green, but a restless shift in the wild soundscape. While the woods still look skeletal and grey, the silence of winter is broken by the urgent, mechanical trill of the red-winged blackbird claiming a thawing marsh. This bird is the true herald of the North Country, its flash of scarlet wings providing the first hit of color against a backdrop of retreating snow.
Lower to the ground, the transition is marked by a damp, primordial energy. On the first warm, rainy nights of the season—often called “Big Nights“—the forest floor comes alive. Thousands of spotted salamanders and wood frogs emerge from the leaf litter, beginning a slow, ancestral trek toward vernal pools to breed. Their arrival is accompanied by the high-pitched “peep” of spring peepers, a sound so pervasive in the rural hollows that it vibrates in the chest, signaling that the frost has finally lost its grip on the soil.
High above the muddy fields, the sky fills with returnees. Turkey vultures begin to wobble on the rising spring thermals, and the “peent” of the American woodcock echoes from the brushy edges of old cow pastures. Even the heavy hitters are stirring; black bears, thin and groggy, begin to wander out of their dens in search of the first succulent skunk cabbage pushing through the slush. It is a gritty, mud-caked sort of rebirth—a reminder that in the Upstate wild, spring is less of a blooming flower and more of a loud, hungry awakening.
While the animals provide the soundtrack, the flora of rural Upstate New York offers the first visual proof of the thaw, rising stubbornly through the iron-grey slush. The true pioneer is the skunk cabbage, a strange, prehistoric-looking plant that literally breathes heat. Using a process called thermogenesis, it melts the snow around it, poking a mottled purple hood through the ice like a warm chimney in the frozen swamp. It is a gritty, functional beauty—not a delicate flower, but a survivor that signals the earth is finally exhaling.
In the hardwood forests, the maples are the first to pulse with life. Long before the buds break, the sap begins its invisible climb from the roots to the crown, triggered by the precise rhythm of freezing nights and thawing days. This internal tide is the lifeblood of the rural spring, turning quiet woodlots into industrious sugar bushes. Soon after, the forest floor sees the arrival of ramps (wild leeks), their vibrant green shoots piercing the brown leaf litter with a pungent, oniony scent that cuts through the smell of damp mud.
As the sun gains strength, the “spring ephemerals”—delicate wildflowers like trout lilies and bloodroot—race to bloom and seed before the forest canopy closes overhead and steals the light. These tiny bursts of yellow and white are fleeting, lasting only a few weeks, but they mark the final victory over winter. In the Upstate wild, spring isn’t a single event; it is a hard-won sequence of melting ice, rising sap, and green shoots reclaiming the hills one muddy inch at a time.
Pussy Willows
As the grip of winter begins to loosen, few sights are as welcome as the silver-grey buds of the pussy willow. While the ground may still be patched with snow and the air remains crisp, these soft, velvet-like catkins serve as one of nature’s earliest and most reliable heralds of spring.
The pussy willow (Salix discolor) is uniquely adapted to the transition of seasons. Unlike flowers that wait for consistent warmth, these shrubs thrive in the damp, waking wetlands. Their “furry” appearance isn’t just for show; the fine hairs act as thermal insulation, protecting the delicate reproductive parts of the plant from late-season frosts. To the casual observer, they look like tiny paws perched on slender branches, a visual softness that contrasts with the jagged, frozen landscape.
Culturally and ecologically, they represent a turning point. For foragers and gardeners, they are a sign to begin preparing for the growth ahead. For early-emerging insects, they provide a vital, life-sustaining source of pollen and nectar when few other plants are in bloom.
Seeing a pussy willow in the wild is a reminder that life is stirring beneath the surface. They don’t wait for the full green of May; they bridge the gap between the silence of winter and the chorus of spring, proving that even the smallest, softest bud can signal a massive shift in the world.
Not sure if I should ride in today 🌧️
Don’t you know that rain is coming, but also it’s Friday so I have meetings downtown this afternoon most likely and it would be convienent to have my bike and not have to deal with either the shuttle or catching the 22 downtown. Assuming the meeting is mid-afternoon, that would negate the issue of having to ride through the rain and I could put my bike on the bus at the end of the day.
I don’t know, I still have some time to weigh my options. ⚖️ I am up early enough I could catch that early express in and then maybe walk on the Plaza. But I do like riding the bike, good exercise, cheapest and most flexible option. It is actually a pretty beautiful day to start out spring. 🌸 Maybe I can deal with being wet later on or take the local bus home if it gets real wet. 💧
Been enjoying my library’s subscription to NewsBank Database 🗞️ which has full-color full-page newspapers for most of the major cities in Upstate New York including the Schenectady Daily Gazette, Syracuse Post-Standard, Buffalo News, and the Albany Times Union. Really enjoy seeing the perspectives and the papers from each city upstate. Also my library has the Wall Street Journal and New York Times online, which is great for getting National and International coverage, especially as I think NPR has become super liberal biased since they lost their government funding. Lately NPR has just been an endless whining fest about Trump, the need to ban all guns, and of course how Trump is banking democracy or some crap like that gives liberals their jollies. 🤡
Yesterday was another busy day with the database update, 💾 got another 10 or so districts loaded but some of them were tough, ended up having to write a bunch new SQL queries for that Tompkins-Cortland district I was working on, and then left some of the database joins running through the night on the server nohup. I want to get through a 1/3rd of the state by my meeting this afternoon, and hopefully get the postage report software working again. And then just moving forward.
All week I’ve done nothing to look at trucks, 🛻 honestly though at this point I don’t really care that much, maybe because I feel like with gas prices going up, ⛽ whatever I buy will be too expensive to operate and I don’t think a lot of people will be out buying trucks right now. Those SuperDuties have either 34 gallon or 48 gallon tanks. What I may ultimately end up doing is signing up for CDTA Car Share, and getting one of their electric cars to visit some of the local dealerships in April once session is on recess, the database update and other projects are done. Honestly at this point though, I am just not really feeling like I want to get back into the driving game.
Those big trucks are so damn expensive, use so much fuel, and honestly I’m just bored with traveling, smoking pot and hanging out in wilderness. 🏕️ Maybe a 25-year old Honda Civic would be fine, or I could look at the cost of repairing/replacing the frame on Big Red, getting some body work done on the bed, and maybe a good detail done to vehicle to make it shinny and new, along with getting caught up on various services like transmission and axle fluid changes. Or I don’t know, just buy that Godamn Godzilla Holstein. Or another big truck. And if fuel is expensive, pay it like a man or stay home. I just get tired of the endless ads for plastic houses and 25-year old Honda Civics that everybody says adults should drive to work and live in.
Tomorrow I will probably ride over to Glenmont to get groceries, and maybe look at getting another bike tire 🚲 for my bike. Looks like it will be a pretty mild and sunny ☀️ spring day, and with the longer evening, it will probably leave time for visiting Five Rivers 🐸 in the evening. Then Sunday looks like rain ☔ but I will probably visit the folks if they come to pick me up. Then it’s just back to work. 🖥️ I feel like whatever, just let the time go by, save and invest more. I could save a lot of money if I cancelled my trip to Michigan this year, and instead took a few long weekends this summer and just hung out at local parks.
It’s a lot of fun to look at off-grid properties and hunting camps on the Internet
It’s a lot of fun to look at off-grid properties and hunting camps on the Internet. I do spend too much time dilly-dallying on my phone, looking at Land and Farm real-estate, as I found Zillow wasn’t exactly a great site for looking for places that aren’t your typical suburbanite development. Hunting camps and cabins, especially without electricity and running water out of the middle of nowhere tend to be quite affordable, especially in less expensive parts of country. Honestly, some of the properties I’ve looked at aren’t really accessable year round, might have restrictions on their use, or are too far from any kind of useful work, but it’s still interesting to explore and dream of the world of tomorrow.
