After several days above 90 degrees, it cooled down nicely today. It seemed like a grand day for a walk in the woods. We decided to make a short drive to a local nature preserve that is under the stewardship of the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy that is just a couple of miles from your house. The preserve is called the Touhey Family Preserve. The preserve is a 49-acre gem that is a small part of what was once a huge stretch of land that had been in the Touhey family for many years.

As the area around Delmar, NY continues to grow and expand these area preserves will continue to grow in importance. The trails are nice and include a few stretches of boardwalks through more “boggy” parts of the woodlands.

There is a small graveled parking area from which the loop trail begins. There is also a short in and back trail that goes to an adjoining pond for views of ducks and other critters that live in that habitat.

The trails are nearly all through shady forested areas and very easy walking. Some areas are bordered by steep ravines providing birds-eye views of dense undergrowth areas that are great for Wood Thrush and other forest birds.

A few areas of the trail runs through moist areas of the preserve but the Conservancy has installed boardwalks on those sections of the trail to reduce erosion being caused by the hikers that frequent the preserve.

We walked the trail both in a clockwise and counter-clockwise direction so as to turn the half-mile walk into a mile walk. It was a very pleasant short venture into nature and proves once again that you don’t have to search all that far to find some great places to get back to the nature of things.