November 2025 events

November is mostly behind-the-scenes month. We have a lot to be thankful for, this month, and will post about all sorts of amazing people, places, and phenomena on instagram, facebook, and/or bluesky. We are open by appointment while we take the time to move art around, build the annual appeal, work on our newsletters, and update and invent new traveling exhibits. We have a few events, of course!

=== NOVEMBER EVENTS ===

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Help Us Get to the Other Side!

Water Damage

You can Help!

We need your help to get to the other side! We have a plan to re-cross Sherman Hollow Brook, and need your help to help fund the construction.

Everything helps, from $5 once, $50 monthly, to $5000 annually.

Bob’s Bridge has been closed since July 2024. Torrential rains and floods that month damaged the bridge and its footing. For safety, the Museum closed it, limiting public access to the museum’s trails on the 60 acres across Sherman Hollow Brook. This also restricted access to Gale’s Retreat.

First Steps

Right after the flood, we began working with Timber and Stone LLC and DeWolfe engineers. Together we are designing and will build a new accessible bridge!

The new route includes a board walk, places to pause and bird, and views above the stream. The new bridge will be above the 100-year flood mark and allow us to reopen the trails for everyone. By rerouting access, we make the access more gradual, more accessible, and minimize erosion into the brook. Continue reading “Help Us Get to the Other Side!”

Through the Window: September 2025

Unidentified hawk overhead against a brilliantly blue sky. Photo copyright Erin Talmage and used by permission.
Unidentified hawk overhead against a brilliantly blue sky. Photo copyright Erin Talmage and used by permission.

Warm and dry pretty much the whole month. Pleasant for sitting around, and can make some nice updrafts. Did you go hawk watching?

Every now and then this year, a warbler comes to the feeder—not to eat, apparently, just to check things out from that perch. And (presumably less often) we notice!

September Bird List

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Through the Window: July 2025

The head of a robin is barely visible above the rim of a mud-and-grasses nest built on an electrical or phone system box on the exterior of a building.
The head of a robin is barely visible above the rim of a mud-and-grasses nest built on an electrical or phone system box. (Photo by K. Talmage, July 2025. Grainy because taken by a zoomed-in cell phone.)

Goodness it’s been hot. What did you have out for birds in your backyard to beat the heat? We have multiple types of cover (shade and safety) and water as well. These robins used the roof of one our sheds as their shade.

July Bird List

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Through the Window: June 2025

Juvenile American Robin looks at viewer: a scruffy songbird with a dark head, charcoal-white-rust speckled breast and belly, and a few tufts of down fluffing out behind its head. One dark eye is visible.
This young American Robin had left the nest, but was still looking around for its parents to bring it food. (They did). Photo by Brady Lasher © 2025 and shown with permission.

We had some great Early Bird Walks this month—you can visit our checklists at eBird to see what we observed not from the window (link below).

By the end of the month, it felt like things are settling down : a robin is incubating or raising a second brood near our back door; adult cardinals are feeding young. Who next will bring their babies around? Chickadees? Blue Jays? Hummingbirds? Watch for fluttering wings and listen for unusual squeakings.

June Bird List

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