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Popular Discussions
- Clearing the Air: Outdoor Wood Boilers Face Regulation (35)
- Lumber, Chips, and Sawdust: For Sawmills, There’s No Such Thing as Waste (13)
- Autumn Olive (12)
- Tale of the Tick: How Lyme Disease is Expanding Northward (11)
- Indian Pipe (9)
- The Haitian Landscape (8)
- Wood Worse than Coal? (7)
- Forests Can’t Fight Climate Change (7)
- Wood Pellets (7)
- It’s Time to Reconsider Spring and Summer Bird Feeding (5)
- Beware of Encroaching Forests (5)
- First Snow (5)
- Bears Fattening Up for Winter’s Slumber (5)
- Opening Camp (5)
- Wet Weather Wondering (5)
Knots and Bolts Archive
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NW Illustrator Honored for Work
Readers of Northern Woodlands will be familiar with artist Adelaide Tyrol’s work: her paintings regularly illustrate our Under the Microscope and Species in the Spotlight columns; her work also graces The Outside Story, our weekly syndicated newspaper column. Another place you can find Adelaide’s work is in the halls of the New York State Museum, in Albany, New York. Tyrol… (more)
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Getting Cranked About Ethanol
As I was waiting at the shop the other day to pick up my chainsaw, I heard strong words up ahead in line: something about the government and the EPA and ethanol. When my turn came at the counter, the saw doctor looked up from my bill, with its itemized list of new gaskets and filters, and said, “Same for… (more)
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Compelling Video on Worcester Beetle Infestation
While those of us in the print world don’t readily admit it, there’s power in television images that just can’t be replicated in words and still photographs. In light of this, we were happy to receive a copy of Lurking in the Trees, a 30-minute film produced by the Nature Conservancy that gives viewers a first-hand look at the Worcester,… (more)
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Foresters and Real Estate Agents Join Forces
In a state dense with timberland, Maine’s district foresters have a serious challenge providing landowners with timely information about good forestry practices and changes in state law. There are 10 district foresters employed by the Maine Forest Service and more than 17 million acres of workable forest land across the state. Many first-time land buyers don’t know about the services… (more)
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Plant Relics are Humble but Handy
Three hundred million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the land. The earth they inhabited was hot and humid and covered in vast, swampy forests that today would seem most bizarre. Some of the plants growing then resembled giant bottle brushes, reaching 60 feet tall. Others sported 100-foot-tall trunks that were clothed in overlapping, scalelike leaves. Notably absent were flowers: it would… (more)
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New Spile Increases Sap Flow
The big buzz this spring in maple sugarmaking circles involves the new check-valve spouts that many sugarmakers with vacuum systems are trying for the first time. The spiles were invented by Tim Perkins at the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center. According to Perkins, in the spring of 2009, the spouts produced a seasonal total of 44.6 gallons of… (more)
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Creating a Vernal Pool
Stewardship Stories - Readers Share Their Ideas and Projects In the fall of 2007, with support from the U.S.D.A.’s Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project (WHIP), we installed seven vernal pools of varying sizes on our 410-acre property in North Bennington, Vermont. Our goal was to enhance our property for all sorts of wildlife, including amphibians. The construction was done with an… (more)
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Growing Willow for Fuel
As communities in the Northeast look for green fuels to replace coal and oil, they are exploring options in woody biomass, including plantings of shrub willow. Our forests will certainly play a key role in sustaining regional biomass plants, but what about on a smaller scale? Might it become feasible for landowners to grow their own short-rotation woody-biomass crops? Proponents… (more)
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Out By the Roots
Out by the Roots They’ve been compared to oversize antlers, bones, or fantastic teeth. If you’ve ever seen the remains of a stump fence, you probably have your own description. The stump fence is an unlikely mix of bulky form and delicate, almost lacy design – whorls and striations that once hid underground now put on display for all the… (more)
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When Ice Melts, Lakes Spring Back to Life
When Ice Melts, Lakes Spring Back to Life The onset of spring brings many changes to our part of the world. The longer days and higher temperatures entice plants to emerge and trees to bud. On our lakes, the ice begins to melt. We anticipate the water activities we’ll soon be enjoying: swimming, boating, and fishing. But the spring thaw… (more)