The dirt on soil — it is a precious thing

A slope that is eroding. Roots of a white pine, removed as a result of the erosion, shown dangling below.
Dee Salomon
A slope that is eroding. Roots of a white pine, removed as a result of the erosion, shown dangling below.
As of this writing, I have seen far fewer Asian jumping worms on our property than over the past four years. My hands are in the soil every day so I would know. The leaf litter still looks mostly intact and the telltale coffee grounds signature are largely absent. I know it is still too early to be optimistic but I find it odd. I have written before about the infestation and about the damage the worms have done to the property over the past few years (https://www.theungardener.com/articles/dont-look-down). But where have they gone? One might think it correlates to the excessive rain but Peter Groffman from the Cary Institute explained that it is an entirely ‘normal’ process of integration. When the worms colonize an area their populations explode and then they settle in and populations reduce and spread– the food they have devoured is no longer there, also predators become familiar with them as a new food source. This is what is happening here.
One continuing effect of worm invasion is erosion. Over the past several years the worms have loosened the soil. This, compounded by the rain has caused extensive soil erosion, most notably on the sides of a ravine where the soil washed into a stream and then into the Housatonic, taking with it several trees. We felled a massive white pine that was about to topple and take with it a huge chunk of soil that would have then washed away. Dr. Jane Lucas, a soil and microbial ecologist from the Cary Institute is concerned about situations like this. “We are losing soil at a concerning clip- whether by heavy rain that causes topsoil to erode, by compaction from driving on dirt roads, and by leaving bare to dry out. Soil, created over many years, is a precious thing. It is alive, with a microbiome that, like our gut microbiome, contains many of the bacteria, fungus, and other organisms (like invertebrates and viruses) that are the basis for the health of trees and other plants.”
Remembering that soil is alive will guide your actions to keep your soil from degrading. Dried out soil is unhealthy; so is water-logged soil. Soil should stay covered and better to keep soil covered with plants rather than mulch, but mulch is better than leaving it bare. Think twice (or thrice!) about using pesticides or herbicides as these have the unwanted effect of destroying the microbes and other living elements needed for healthy soil. Rather than fertilizing your plants, you want to feed your soil, specifically feeding the microbiome, to keep it healthy and your plants healthy. Compost should not be used in place of soil but can be a useful amendment to soil as organic matter in the form of decaying plant material can help soil retain water and nutrients, reduce erosion, and attract beneficial organisms to the soil.
One person thinking a lot about soil health is Jeff Lynch, formerly grounds manager at Chanticleer who returned to his former hometown this spring to run the gardens at Wethersfield. If you have visited Wethersfield you will recall the several variations of beech trees that have been a signature of the garden. Recently the clipped columns of weeping beech and the allée of beech had to be removed due to beech die-back. Jeff has prioritized soil health at Wethersfield to support trees, both the remaining yet vulnerable beech and other trees and plants. He mixes a custom formula himself which, for the average homeowner might not be practical, but there are products available that have a mixture of fish, kelp and humates similar to what Jeff mixes himself for Wethersfield You can find a selection at Arbico.com
While healthy soil won’t itself cure tree and plant diseases it will support trees in times of stress which can help keep a vulnerable tree alive. (On beech specifically, Jeff and many arborists have been using PolyPhosphite 30 or other phosphite products as a drench during the growing season. https://web.uri.edu/ipm/2022/06/beech-leaf-disease-treatment/ is a helpful from University of Rhode Island) Given current issues with beech, hemlock and now sugar maples, which are losing leaves early either due to scorch or a fungal disease such as anthracnose, perhaps the best thing we can do now is to make and keep healthy soil.
A soil test is a good way to start. There are plenty of labs to choose from; Cornell College of Agriculture offers several levels of testing. Jeff directed me to a new biological test that you can do yourself; it goes a step further than most soil tests to analyze microbes in the soil. The Microbiometer soil test kit measures the microbial biomass and the fungal to bacterial ratio. It is available on their website, www.microbiometer.com.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Jim Archer of Elk Ravine Farm takes a seat on Billy the water buffalo on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
AMENIA — Jim Archer doesn’t look like a typical “influencer.” He doesn’t have a podcast and he doesn’t take jet-setting trips to Bali for advertising shoots.
But he has amassed a following of more than 100,000 people across his Instagram and TikTok accounts. Archer shows off his unique collection of farm animals and produces educational content about ecology and the environment all from Elk Ravine Farm, his property on Smithfield Valley Road in Amenia.
Archer bought the farm 30 years ago. He was living in Katonah, New York — where he grew up — and finding success as a contractor when he decided he wanted plenty of land in the country.
He bought the 90-acre property and spent 10 years prepping and building before he could move onto the farm. Then the real work could begin.
Archer has a passion for environmentalism and conservation that runs deep. His farm is under conservation easement with the Dutchess Land Conservancy, and the main goal of his operation is to raise livestock to aid in maintaining endangered habitats.
Archer raises Scottish Highlands cattle and Southeast Asian water buffalo because of their affinity for rugged terrain and dense, unappetizing foliage. They serve as all-natural weed-eaters, Archer said, going into habitats and eating plants that more typical livestock would avoid.
“They’re replacing an herbivore that has become extinct through millennia,” Archer said.
This strategy centers natural habitat management strategies rather than herbicides that could leach into water tables, potentially causing more harm to critters than the good that would come from removing invasive plants.
The water buffalo are especially fond of an invasive called phragmites — also known as common reed. These non-native plants form dense clods that choke out native species, according to the New York Invasive Species Information website, eventually killing all diversity in a wetland.
“Scottish highlanders don’t want to go where the footing is bad,” Archer said. “So I asked if we could proceed with Southeast Asian water buffalo and we’ve been working with them for about two years now.”
The operation is under expansion with 13 water buffalo and between 35 and 40 highlands cattle.
Archer’s environmental work is expensive, though, and he refuses to accept donations or even volunteer labor to help him with his operation. Instead, he sells educational tours of his Amenia farm to fund the conservation efforts. “I have to earn what I get,” Archer said.
Jim Archer keeps sheep, goats, pigs, emus, horses and a variety of fowl on his farm on Smithfield Valley Road in Amenia.
Archer has amassed a menagerie of animals at his 90-acre farm — all raised from adolescence by him and his fiancee — including pigs, sheep, highlands cattle, water buffalo, emus, goats, pheasants, horses, pigeons, ducks and peafowl.
Tourists start by meeting the highlands cattle, the animal that generally draws a group to the farm, Archer said. “Everybody wants to pet a fluffy cow.”
Archer’s tours put visitors in direct contact with nearly every animal on his farm, except for the horses. Those are just for pulling Archer’s restored stage coaches, including a re-creation horse-drawn ambulance — a hobby for him and his fiancée.
The experience can be overwhelming for some. “I get a lot of people that cry,” Archer said, because many of his visitors are urban or suburbanites with limited experience with animals, and the interactions can be moving.
“Somebody was suffering a loss of their partner,” Archer said. “They came here to see the animals to help through their grieving process. Billy, the water buffalo, was laying down so she sat down and he put his head in her lap. The whole time we were there — 30, 45 minutes — she was just there bonding with him.”
“Emus are dinosaurs,” Jim Archer said as he exposed the claw located on his emu’s wing.Nathan Miller
Nathan Miller
The most divisive animals on the property are the emus. Archer has five of them that live in an enclosure with some goats. The emus are curious and friendly, but they have a funny way of showing it. The birds have to explore things using beaks, leading to a lot of nibbling and pecking as visitors stand in the pen with them. Some people, understandably, find that a little annoying, Archer said.
Interested visitors can book tours through Archer’s website, www.elkravinefarm.com, or by texting 914-262-4737. A two-hour tour of the farm for a group of four people costs $250. An appointment is required to visit the farm.
SHARON — Sharon Dennis Rosen, 83, died on Aug. 8, 2025, in New York City.
Born and raised in Sharon, Connecticut, she grew up on her parents’ farm and attended Sharon Center School and Housatonic Valley Regional High School. She went on to study at Skidmore College before moving to New York City, where she married Dr. Harvey Rosen and together they raised two children.
Sharon’s lifelong love of learning and the arts shaped both her work and her passions. For decades, she served as a tour guide at the American Museum of Natural History and the Asia Society, sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm with countless visitors. She also delighted in traveling widely, immersing herself in other cultures, and especially treasured time spent visiting her daughter and grandsons in Europe and Africa.
She was also deeply connected to her hometown, where in retirement she spent half her time and had many friends. She served as President of the Sharon East Side Cemetery until the time of her death, where generations of her family are buried and where she will also be laid to rest.
She is survived by her husband, Harvey; her children, Jennifer and Marc; and four beloved grandchildren.
Claire and Garland Jeffreys in the film “The King of In Between.”
There is a scene in “The King of In Between,” a documentary about musician Garland Jeffreys, that shows his name as the answer to a question on the TV show “Jeopardy!”
“This moment was the film in a nutshell,” said Claire Jeffreys, the film’s producer and director, and Garland’s wife of 40 years. “Nobody knows the answer,” she continued. “So, you’re cool enough to be a Jeopardy question, but you’re still obscure enough that not one of the contestants even had a glimmer of the answer.”
Garland Jeffreys never quite became a household name, but he carved out a singular place in American music by refusing to fit neatly into any category. A biracial New Yorker blending rock, reggae, soul and R&B, he used genre fusion as a kind of rebellion — against industry pigeonholes, racial boundaries and the musical status quo. Albums like “Ghost Writer” (1977) captured the tension of a post–civil rights America, while songs like “Wild in the Streets” made him an underground prophet of urban unrest. He moved alongside artists like Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen but always in his own lane — part poet, part agitator, part bridge between cultures.
“I think what I tried to do with the film, wittingly or unwittingly, was just to show that we all have these lives and they don’t often meet our dreams of what we think we’re entitled to, we’re talented enough to get or whatever,” said Claire. “We all have these goals, but we’re sort of stymied. Often, it’s partly circumstance and luck, but it’s also very often something that we’re doing or not doing that’s impeding us.”
This is not the typical rock-and-roll redemption story. There are no smashed guitars, no heroic overdoses, no dramatic comeback tour. What we get instead is something quieter and more intimate: hours of archival footage that Claire spent years sorting through. The sheer effort behind the film is palpable — so much so that, as she admitted with a laugh, it cured her of any future ambitions in filmmaking.
“What I learned with this project was A, I’m never doing it again. It was just so hard. And B, you know, you can do anything if you collaborate with people that know what they’re doing.”
Claire worked with the editing team of Evan M. Johnson and Ben Sozanski and a slew of talented producers, and ended up with a truthful portrayal — a beautiful living document for Garland’s legions of fans and, perhaps most importantly, for the couple’s daughter, Savannah.
“She’s been in the audience with me maybe three or four times,” said Claire. “The last time, I could tell that she was beginning to feel very proud of the effort that went into it and also of being a part of it.”
Savannah pursued a career in music for a while herself but has changed tracks and become a video producer.
“I think she couldn’t quite see music happening for herself,” said Claire. “She was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to struggle the way I saw my dad struggling and I’m going to get a job with a salary.’”
The film doesn’t just track the arc of an underappreciated musician, however. The music, always playing, is the soundtrack of a life — of a man navigating racial, musical and personal boundaries while balancing marriage, parenthood, aging, addiction andrecovery. Garland and Claire speak plainly about getting sober in the film, a life choice that gave them both clarity and shows Claire as a co-conspirator in his survival.
“I did some work early on with a director,” said Claire. “He wanted the final cut, and I didn’t feel like I could do that — not because I wanted so much to control the story, but I didn’t want the story to be about Alzheimer’s.”
Diagnosed in 2017, Garland, now 81, is in the late stages of the disease. Claire serves as his primary caregiver. The film quietly acknowledges his diagnosis, but it doesn’t dwell — a restraint that feels intentional. Garland spent a career refusing to be reduced: not to one sound, one race or one scene. And so the documentary grants him that same dignity in aging. His memory may be slipping, but the film resists easy sentimentality. Instead, it shows what remains — his humor, his voice, his marriage, the echo of a life lived on the edges of fame and at the center of his own convictions.
The Moviehouse in Millerton will be screening “The King of In Between” on Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. Peter Aaron, arts editor of Chronogram Magazine will conduct a talkback and Q&A with Claire Jeffreys after the film. Purchase tickets at themoviehouse.net.
The Haystack Book Festival, a program of the Norfolk Hub, brings renowned writers and thinkers to Norfolk for conversation. Celebrating its fifth season this fall, the festival will gather 18 writers for discussions at the Norfolk Library on Sept. 20 and Oct. 3 through 5.
Jerome A. Cohen, author of the memoir “Eastward, Westward: A Lifein Law.”Haystack Book Festival
For example, “Never Take the Rule of Law for Granted: China and the Dissident,” will be held Saturday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m. at the Norfolk Library. It brings together Jerome A. Cohen, author of “Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law,” and Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong King’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic” in dialogue with journalist Richard Hornik to discuss the rule of law and China.
The Council on Foreign Relations stated, “Few Americans have done more than Jerome A. Cohen to advance the rule of law in East Asia. He established the study of Chinese law in the United States. An advocate for human rights, Cohen has been a scholar, teacher, lawyer, and activist for sixty years.”
Cohen, a professor at New York University School of Law and director of its U.S.-Asia Law Institute, revealed his long view on China: “We are now witnessing another extreme in the pendulum’s swing toward repression. Xi Jinping is likely to outlive me but ‘no life lives forever.’ There will eventually be another profound reaction to the current totalitarian era.”
Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.”Haystack Book Festival
In “The Troublemaker,” Clifford chronicles Lai’s life from child refugee to pro-democracy billionaire to his current imprisonment by the Chinese Communist Party. Clifford is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a Walter Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and holds a PhD in history from the University of Hong Kong. He was the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and The Standard (Hong Kong and Seoul).
Journalist Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.Haystack Book Festival
Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center, will moderate the discussion. Hornik is the former executive editor of AsiaWeek, news service director of Time magazine, and former Time bureau chief in Warsaw, Boston, Beijing and Hong Kong.
Betsy Lerner, author of “Shred Sisters,” is giving the 2025 Brendan Gill lecture at the Haystack Book Festival.Haystack Book Festival
The Brendan Gill Lecture is a highlight of the festival honoring longtime Norfolk resident Brendan Gill, who died in1997. Gill wrote for The New Yorker magazine for fifty years. Betsy Lerner, New York Times-recognized author of “Shred Sisters,” will deliver this year’s lecture on Friday, Oct. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Norfolk Library.
Visit haystackbookfestival.org to register. Admission is free.