What in the Woods Is That?

Play our biweekly guessing game!

Whatever draws us into the forest—be it birdwatching or logging, hiking or hunting—all of us are unified by the sense of wonder we feel in the outdoors. The forests, fields, and streams of our region are full of mystery, and if you stop and look closely, you’ll see all sorts of oddities.

Below find a picture of one such woodlands curio. Guess what it is and you’ll be eligible to win a Northern Woodlands woodpecker magnet designed by artist Liz Wahid. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner’s name, will appear when the next column is posted and in our newsletter (sign up here!).

Mossy Mystery

Ben Haubrich sent us these photos of some mossy logs he found beside a pond in southwestern New Hampshire. How long ago were they cut, do you figure?

Answer

The “US” stamp was the give-away. “These were ‘hurricane logs,’” Ben Haubrich tells us, cut in 1938. Learn more about how the federal government stepped in to buy, store, and mill logs during the time period from the excerpt we ran recently of Stephen Long’s new book, Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transformed New England.

This week’s contest winner was Wendy Scribner