Outside Story - Archive
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Sweet and Sour Gardening
April 22, 2007
Now is the time of year for cleaning out the woodstove and spreading the ashes on the garden, a chore that both prepares the stove for summer vacation and sweetens the soil for the coming growing season. Those without access to wood ash usually make the trek to the hardware store for a bag of lime, which also sweetens the …
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Eagle versus Owl
April 15, 2007
In a showdown between a bald eagle and a great horned owl, who would win?
A bald eagle has a wingspan that can be nearly seven feet. It can weigh up to 14 pounds. It has piercing yellow eyes and a large, hooked bill. It is a symbol of pride and power. In comparison, a great horned owl is puny. …
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Way to Go!
April 08, 2007
With the welcome arrival of spring, each day brings new birds, many of them from far away. Their appearance - sometimes all the members of a species arrive within a few days - is the result of many complex factors.
Underlying everything is inheritance. A bird must prepare well in advance for a long journey: something has to trigger …
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Love (Song) is in the Air
April 01, 2007
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the
flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land.
—Solomon 2:12
King Solomon, legend has it, possessed a magical ring that allowed him to communicate with animals. But …
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In the Shadow of Ice
March 25, 2007
In 1848, the bones of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) were uncovered in Mount Holly, Vermont, during excavation for the first railroad tracks across the Green Mountains. While these bones offer dramatic evidence of the ice ages that once scoured New England, they are by no means the only evidence. The testimony of ice is everywhere.
Twenty thousand years …
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Does Cutting Trees Cool the Climate?
March 18, 2007
With deep snow lingering, now is a good time to perform the following experiment. Look out across a hillside that is a mix of forest and field. Now squint a bit. Which is brighter, the forest or the field?
The snow-covered field, of course, is much brighter than the forest, even on a cloudy day. The darker forest, meanwhile, absorbs …
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Cold Comfort for Plants
March 11, 2007
When snow finally arrived this winter, and high winds followed, I knew the trees would be on the move. Not just dancing in the breeze, but spreading into new territory. Many of our native species drop small, lightweight seeds that are blown great distances over the surface of the snow.
Seeds of birches - white, yellow, and gray - are …
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Sorting Out the Maples
March 04, 2007
There you are, leaning against a big maple in your sugarbush, drill and tap at the ready, when you think, “Wait a minute…is this a red maple or a sugar maple?“
While maples in general are quite easy to distinguish from other forest trees (their twigs and bugs grow opposite one another, unlike any other common trees except the ashes, …
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Salt: Too Much of a Good Thing
February 25, 2007
My car is coated in long smears of salt. If I brush the car door, I’m left with a large, white, and somewhat tasty smudge on my clothes. While I’m always pleased to get home on winter roads in one piece, I wonder how this plume of salt is affecting the world that I’m rushing through.
Farmers and gardeners are …
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The Pond in Winter
February 18, 2007
In the spring of 1984, I spent many days in a study carrel on the seventh floor of Baker Library at Dartmouth College while writing Pond and Brook. One day, I walked past nearby Occom Pond and was stunned to see the ice melting and the shore littered with hundreds of fish - bloated, sallow bodies sporting eyes clouded with …
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