July, 2008

You don't have to live in Lewisboro to be part of Vi Patek's Lewisboro Land Trust walking group. Vi leads walks through preserves in town throughout the year. The next on is Saturday, July 26, at 9 a.m., at the Old Field Preserve, on Mead Street, Waccabuc.

Ryder Farm, one of the oldest farms in the region (it's been in the same family for almost 200 years), sits on the west shore of Peach Lake, just above the North Salem border, in Southeast. Although it's in Putnam County, it's close enough and important enough for us to do what we can to help protect it.

Our favorite secret natural area is an eight- or 10-acre fen at the bottom of a basin of hills covered with oaks, hickories and red cedars.

There's good news from Albany for those of us who think protecting working farms should be a state priority.

Christopher O. Ward, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, gets high praise in the New York Times today for knowing how to make tough decisions. We worked with Chris on two projects three or four years ago, when he was the commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.

Yesterday's mail brought the Spring 2008 issue of the Westchester Historian, the journal of the Westchester County Historical Society, and we were excited to see that the issue bore the title, "Stewards of the Land: The Meads of Waccabuc."