Pollination Meadow unveils children’s sundial and new trail

The updated Pollination Meadow in Tuxedo, NY, will host a ribbon cutting on Saturday, Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. to unveil a new children’s area featuring a sundial donated in memory of Andy Rogers, a founding member of the Eagle Valley Fire Department. Rogers’ family gifted the sundial, and Eagle Scout candidate Leo Portanova and fellow Scouts designed the surrounding play space, adding stone paths, wood chips and a pollinator ring of purple coneflowers.

The project was supported by the Town of Tuxedo, Olson Excavation and local volunteers. At the same time, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and NYS Parks completed a new one-mile hiking trail just in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the nation’s first marked nature trail. This trail was blazed in 1925 by Dr. Frank Lutz, head of entomology at the Museum of Natural History, who with a group of Scouts created the original Station for the Study of Insects.

“It’s very easy to access, there’s parking and it’s flat so it’s not super difficult. It loops around the Indian Kill River. The first time we went we saw baby turkeys, we found artifacts,” said Tuxedo resident Kelly Spranger, who in 2020 spearheaded a clean-up of the neglected land that would become the Pollination Meadow.