Graduation Day 2012

Our son graduated from high school this year. We are so proud of him. Congratulations AJ! 

Hudson River Dredging Project

This is a view from the west side of the Hudson River. Our house is behind  the road in back of the trees you see in back of the dredge. While we were taking pictures, they were just leveling out the piles of dirt.

      This is the air quality monitor that is in our front yard while dredging occurs.

     To briefly explain this dredging project, you just need to know that GE dumped PCBs in the Hudson River many years ago. The state decided that GE should now clean it up. It is much more complicated than that, but that is the basic fact. Check out the official website to get the whole story. http://www.hudsondredging.com/ 

     The dredging continues this year for it's third season. We are unlucky enough to have it directly across from us now. We are separated only by the width of the road and a thin stretch of woods. They are dredging 24 hours a day 6 days a week. Sundays are now so quiet it is strange. During the dredging there is the constant loud droning sound of the motors of the equipment. There is also the feeling that we are having a thunderstorm all the time with a loud clap of thunder then a rolling thunder sound repeatedly. This is the sound of the dredge hitting the bottom of the barge while picking up replacement dirt to fill in where they had dredged. They fill a barge with contaminated dirt and then bring in another with replacement dirt. They are working several locations at once in this stretch of the river.  

     There is an air quality monitor on our property as well as many other properties in the immediate area of the dredging. You can check out reports on their site. 



Osprey Nest on Power Pole in Fort Edward, NY

    

     This power pole with an osprey nest on top is less than a mile from our house on our street. Our local Audubon Society ran a story about it in their newsletter in 2009. They reported: "Nest building is an important ritual in attracting a mate, as the males bring in the building materials to the female. These large stick nests, sometimes five feet in diameter, can be works of art. The osprey worked on the nest in May and June of 2008 but were not successful at nesting. National Grid  (the local power company) removed the nest from the pole, built a platform,and replaced the nest at the site."
     There were no birds using the nest in 2009. I am not sure about 2010, but there were birds using the nest last year and again this year. I think the project was a success!
     We have driven past this nest many times and have never seen birds in it. Today we saw a bird in it so we stopped to take pictures. I took a picture and then the first bird flew away. A second bird popped up and sat there long enough for me to take pictures of it.