Hrm, well, it would appear that ntpd 4.2.2p1 does not log enough info. It sends log info to syslog, but that seems to report only startup/shutdown/error info (even with "debug" level captured). I added the logfile option and got a status report in the logfile every time ntpd connected to an upstream stratus server.
Code:
7 Oct 11:47:16 ntpd[32403]: synchronized to 193.79.237.14, stratum 1
