AMENIA — Apart from the sounds of passing cars, distant train whistles and the occasional community gathering, those who visit the town of Amenia are likely to find peace and quiet most weekends. However, a few people were surprised to hear crowing in the town earlier this month as a rogue rooster was spotted walking around the business district, making his presence known with a loud “cock-a-doodle-do.”
As one of the first people to report the rooster’s crow, Sheila Petnuch Fields, a Hudson Valley freelance writer and founder of www.AwakenedWoman.me, said she first heard the rooster on Saturday, Oct. 17. She could hear his incessant crowing around the Main Street area, and thought it strange as she had would not have expected to hear a rooster in the mixed commercial and residential area.
“It sounded like he was sending out an SOS, like ‘E.T. wants to go home,’” Fields said, adding that his crowing tugged on her heartstrings.
The following day, Sunday, Oct. 18, Fields said she was again walking in the area and happened to notice a rooster in the yard of a house in the area. The gentleman who lived there, she said, happened to be in the yard and they began chatting, though she soon found out that the rooster she had heard the day before was not the same as the one in the gentleman’s yard. Continuing her walk around the neighborhood, Fields kept her eyes open in case she saw the rooster she was looking for before she eventually ended back on Main Street.
Popping into Yellow Submarine Used Books, located on Route 343, Fields chatted with the store’s owner, Mary Thompson, and eventually turned the conversation to hearing the rooster. It was then that Thompson revealed that she and her husband, Robert, had seen what she believed was the same rooster crossing traffic on Route 343.
Thompson said that she had seen the rooster in question on Friday night, Oct. 16, when a neighbor living above the bookshop had called her attention to him. Giving a description of the reddish rooster, she said, “He looks quite ornamental, he’s very colored, so I’m hoping he wasn’t a fighting rooster or [that] somebody had him for poor reasons.”
Thompson told Fields that she and her husband thought the rooster may have gotten hit by a vehicle when Robert later saw feathers on the side of the road. A customer at Yellow Submarine Used Books mentioned that the rooster looked like he had a wing hanging down when they saw him. Thompson noted that a neighbor said a hen had found the rooster and was hanging around him on Sunday.
While Thompson doesn’t know whether or not the rooster and hen are a pair, she voiced her concern about their safety as “nobody seems to be looking for them.”
After hearing about a sighting of the rooster, Fields decided to continue her pursuit. There, she came across the tell-tale rooster and snapped a photograph of the feathered fowl.
Recalling her encounter, Fields said, “He allowed me to get fairly close and talk to him. He seemed a bit lethargic, which led me to believe he had been clipped, and he was resting. Typically, when you see a rooster or a hen, they’re walking around pecking, but this little guy was all settled in.”
When asked whether she had reached out to someone about the rooster, Fields said she was going to call the town’s animal control officer on Monday morning, Oct. 19. Come Monday, she said she didn’t hear any reports that the rooster was crowing and assumed that either someone had taken him to a veterinarian or that he had passed away.
“I would be curious to find out where he came from,” Fields mused. “Where did him come from and where has he gone?”
If any readers of The Millerton News know what has become of this rogue rooster, email kaitlinl@millertonnews.com, and the paper will try to run a follow-up article in the future. We hope there will be good news to share.
Built in 1820, 1168 Bangall Amenia Road sold for $875,000 on July 31 with the transfer recorded in August. It has a Millbrook post office and is located in the Webutuck school district.
STANFORD — The Town of Stanford with nine transfers in two months reached a median price in August of $573,000 for single family homes, still below Stanford’s all-time median high in August 2024 of $640,000.
At the beginning of October there is a large inventory of single-family homes listed for sale with only six of the 18 homes listed for below the median price of $573,000 and seven above $1 million.
July transfers
79 Ernest Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 6.87 acres in 2 parcels sold to Matthew C. Marinetti for $1,225,000.
29 Drake Road — 3 bedroom/3.5 bath home on 2 acres sold to Harper Montgomery for $850,000.
6042 Route 82 — 4 bedroom/2 bath home on 1.09 acres sold to Spencer Thompson for $795,000.
125 Tick Tock Way — 3 bedroom/2.5 bath ranch on 1.9 acres sold to Fleur Touchard for $475,000.
August transfers
102 Prospect Hill Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on 6.35 acres sold to Karl Creighton Pfister for $565,000.
252 Ernest Road — 2 bedroom/1 bath cottage on .85 acres sold to Meg Bumie for $465,000.
1196 Bangall Amenia Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 2.16 acres sold to Roderick Alleyne for $875,000.
Hunns Lake Road (#759929) — 59.1 acres of residential land sold to Argos Farm LLC for $3,325,000.
* Town of Stanford recorded real estate transfers from July 1 to August 31 provided by Dutchess County Real Property Office monthly transfer reports. Details on each property from Dutchess Parcel Access - properties with an # indicate location on Dutchess Parcel Access. Market data from One Key MLS and Infosparks .Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
Hunt club members and friends gathered near Pugsley Hill at the historic Wethersfield Estate and Gardens in Amenia for the opening meet of the 2025-2026 Millbrook Hunt Club season on Saturday, Oct. 4. Foxhunters took off from Wethersfield’s hilltop gardens just after 8 a.m. for a hunting jaunt around Amenia’s countryside.
Joining in the fun at the dedication of the new pollinator pathway garden at The Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4, local expert gardener Maryanne Snow Pitts provides information about a planting to Lorraine Mirabella of Poughkeepsie.
MILLBROOK — Participating in a patchwork of libraries that have planted pollinator pathway gardens to attract insects and birds to their native plantings was one of the accomplishments being celebrated at the dedication of a new pollinator garden at the Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4.
“A lot of work went into it,” said Emma Sweeney, past President of the Millbrook Garden Club, who started the local library’s initiative two years ago.
The Pollinator Pathway program is a national effort to plant native plants that native insects depend upon for sustenance and preferred plants for their own seasonal reproduction.
Jana Hogan of Ridgefield, Connecticut, Executive Director of the Pollinator Pathway program, was on hand to present a plaque to the library for its successful participation.
“A garden is not just a garden,” said garden designer Andy Durbridge of Wassaic, designer of the library’s garden. “It may serve as a model for other gardens along the line.”
Speaking to the 50 visitors at the dedication, Durbridge said that the library’s garden has a mission, that it is a working garden, planned to serve insects and birds over their seasons. The earliest plants support pollinators, while the full range of plants continues to serve the needs of those they attract, offering habitat, shelter and food.
A pollinator garden is akin to a prairie, rather than a formalized European garden, Durbridge noted.
The garden project was supported by the library’s Friends group using funds raised during the Holiday Silent Auction and ongoing book sale. A grant from the Millbrook Garden Club also provided support.
Amenia Town Hall on Route 22.
AMENIA — After gathering comments from the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals, as it considers adding alternate members to those boards, the Town Board discussed possible changes to local laws governing those boards at its meeting on Friday, Oct. 3. The meeting date, usually on a Thursday, had been changed to accommodate a holiday.
In recent weeks Town Board attorney Ian Lindars has been compiling comments from the affected boards along with comments from the Town Board. The new laws may bring the appointment of two alternate members to each board. Alternate members are likely to be required to attend all meetings and be prepared to be seated if needed and be familiar with the applications being discussed. They would also need to take training required of all board members.
Lindars will prepare a draft of the new local laws to be reviewed by the Town Board and the affected boards.
As the Town Board begins work on the town’s annual budget negotiation process and anticipating an increase in some budget lines to accommodate major projects, the board unanimously approved three resolutions. The first will override the tax levy limit imposed on municipalities by the state of New York, a limit generally tied to the rate of inflation.
A public hearing on the proposal to override the levy limit was set for Thursday, November 6, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall.
