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1 month ago | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Thomas Saunders |Daryln Brewer Hoffstot |Doug Heuck |Joe Grant
A beautiful place to hike and explore in northwest Pennsylvania is Dutch Hill Forest, along the Clarion River in Heath Township, Jefferson County. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has protected more than 32,000 acres along the Clarion River, which was highly polluted decades ago but is now largely restored and a federally designated Wild and Scenic River.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Thomas Saunders |Daryln Brewer Hoffstot |Doug Heuck |Joe Grant
Home › Article › Explore a Winter Hike on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail One of our region’s great hikes is the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail. It runs from the town of Ohiopyle on its southern end 70 miles northward to a vista above the Conemaugh River at its northern terminus. Used by through- and day-hikers and runners, it’s one of Pennsylvania’s most beautiful trails.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Joe Grant |Daryln Brewer Hoffstot |Thomas Saunders |Dominique Escandon Valverde
As the beautiful foliage and cooler weather approach Pennsylvania, thousands of deer hunters anticipate the time-honored tradition of Whitetail deer hunting. From late September to mid-January, hunters prepare for their pilgrimage to the forests and fields across Penn’s Woods in hopes of taking one of these magnificent creatures. Pennsylvania has 850,000 deer hunters, the most in the nation, and they harvest 406,000 deer annually and spend $1.5 billion dollars on the sport.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Daryln Brewer Hoffstot
We raised our babies in this old farmhouse, wrapped them in swaddling clothes like little cocoons, and protected them as best as we could. We renovated parts of the house, added a bathroom and knocked through a kitchen wall to create more space for a growing family. We fed our children, taught them what we knew. We sent them out into the world. That’s all carpenter bees want to do. The female uses her powerful mandibles to chew nearly perfectly round half-inch holes into our front porch railings.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Thomas Saunders |Daryln Brewer Hoffstot |Deborah Weisberg
There’s a great place to go for an autumn road trip where you can take a deep-forest hike and feel the awe of old forest trees. About 90 miles north of Pittsburgh in western Crawford County, the 100-acre Tryon-Weber Woods area originally was protected by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1976 and enlarged in 2017.
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Jul 31, 2024 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Daryln Brewer Hoffstot
One of my husband’s first tasks when we moved to the farm 36 years ago was to remove poison ivy from the trees. He never used chemicals, just his two (gloved) hands. He came home time and time again with poison ivy pustules on his wrists that leaked liquid for three weeks. “A fool’s errand,” he said. A fool’s errand not just because poison ivy is difficult to eradicate, but because the plant doesn’t usually harm trees.
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Jul 4, 2024 | 
bostonglobe.com | Daryln Brewer Hoffstot
We buried Basil with his head facing east so that he could watch the sun rise every day. I wrote about our 15-year-old goldendoodle in these pages last January — how he taught me to age with grace — but we lost him shortly thereafter, in early March. He’d survived a couple of strokes but then succumbed. I knew the final blow was coming; I just prayed it never would. On the night Basil died, I lay on the floor next to him, flanked by our other two dogs.
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May 14, 2024 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Daryln Brewer Hoffstot
The first time I saw the white bird flying overhead, I thought I’d gone slightly mad because large white birds are not common in the Ligonier Valley. I was riding my bike on a rural road between two cow fields, a herd of black-angus eyeing me warily. I pedaled slowly, watching what I presumed was an exotic visitor, white birds of all sorts running through my mind: egrets and snowy owls, ibis and seagulls, whooping cranes, snow geese, and ptarmigans.
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May 3, 2024 | 
inquirer.com | Daryln Brewer Hoffstot
I am afraid of the sound of rain. Not a drizzle, a pitter patter or, as the Irish say, a fine soft day. I’m afraid of the roar of a relentless rain and a raging creek — the deluge that precedes the flood. A sound so loud I can yell at someone five feet across the creek and they can barely hear me. When I can’t distinguish what is rain from what is creek.
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Apr 3, 2024 | 
pittsburghquarterly.com | Thomas Saunders |Daryln Brewer Hoffstot |Deborah Weisberg
There are only eight natural lakes in western Pennsylvania. Among the most beautiful is Lake Pleasant, in central Erie County between the towns of Waterford and Wattsburg. It’s wonderful for exploring, particularly for canoeing and kayaking. These lakes were formed by retreating continental glaciers, about 20,000 years ago. Tremendous blocks of ice were left behind and smothered in sand and gravel. Water-filled depressions formed when the ice melted, creating natural glacial lakes.
