Editor's Blog - Archive
Farm, Forest, and Diesel Fuel
May 23, 2008
I live something of a double life: member of the Northern Woodlands team by day and owner/operator of an organic vegetable farm by night. (Time-wise, it’s actually the other way around.)
Recently, as the price of oil has climbed steadily upward, the economic fortunes of my two …
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Kickin’ Tires
May 08, 2008
Back when we started Northern Woodlands (as Vermont Woodlands in 1994), we hardly knew what we were getting in for as far as the business end of it goes. If you had told me I would be going to trade shows and hawking the magazine and all of our other …
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Green Up
April 25, 2008
It might seem odd that a person would really and truly enjoy Green-up day. Around here, it’s on the first Saturday in May that people don gloves and walk the roads to pick up the assorted and sometimes unpleasant litter that misbegotten souls have let fly from their cars …
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Catherine Tudish
April 18, 2008
It’s always a treat when one of your alumni makes good. That’s how I felt when I just read a glowing review of Catherine Tudish’s new novel, American Cream.
Catherine worked at Northern Woodlands for about 2 years. She left in 2003, when she was awarded a prestigious grant that …
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Town Forests
April 07, 2008
A few Saturdays ago, I attended the third annual Vermont Town Forest Project summit. It was held in Hinesburg, Vermont, a town that lies about half in the rising, forested slopes of the Green Mountains and half in the flat, fertile Champlain Valley. Hinesburg’s fortunate to own not one but …
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Forestry Awareness Day
March 21, 2008
When observers of goings-on at the State House in Albany, New York, recall the events of March 10, 2008, chances are they will remember it as the day the news broke about Eliot Spitzer. They will not remember it as the day that the state's Department of Environmental Conservation announced …
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Installing a Wood Boiler
March 14, 2008
As we worked on editing the Outdoor Wood Boiler article in the current issue of the magazine, I began to think seriously about installing such a unit on our farm. We live in the midst of 90 acres of mixed hardwoods, and the prospect of meeting all of our …
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The Place You Call Home
March 07, 2008
When you buy a car, you receive an owner’s manual. When you buy an appliance like a refrigerator, you get an owner’s manual. It makes sense. As the proud new owner of an expensive piece of equipment, you don’t want to do anything to compromise its long-term value and usefulness. …
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Terrific Novel of Backwoods Vermont
January 25, 2008
Last Sunday afternoon, I picked up Castle Freeman’s Go With Me, and started reading it around 4:00. I finished sometime after 9:00, stopping only to throw more wood in the woodstove. I didn’t stop for supper, just kept going, couldn’t put it down.
There’s two things worth noting about …
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Outdoor Wood Boilers
January 18, 2008
We’ve been developing an article for the upcoming issue about outdoor wood boilers, and the topic has been driving us a bit crazy. On the one hand, many of these boilers are terribly smoky and have been the target of recent air-quality regulations. On the other, they allow people …
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