Articles

As daylight drains from the summer sky, a cool breeze rustles through a hay-scented New England meadow. Relaxing in the long grass, even the keenest observer might miss the miniature army…

July 1989: A stranger with a colander full of fragrant mushrooms changed my life. Reinhardt, a German scientist with wild hair, in khaki shorts, rushed into our dooryard, displayed his heap of…

We’re excited about a new project we’re embarking on with Jerry Jenkins, a research ecologist, botanist, and geographer from White Creek, New York. The concept is simple: Jerry…

“I took this image on the Subway trail on Mt. Mansfield in Vermont,” says photographer Nathanael Asaro. The trail runs parallel to the west side of the ridgeline. Asaro and a…

One way that trees respond to stress is to pour energy into the dormant buds along their trunks and branches. Sprouts erupt in odd places, and a tree’s looks change rapidly. In the…

Like many artists, David Goodsell’s work is born of careful observation of the natural world; his landscapes just happen to be molecular – the world he presents is measured in…

The first time I saw cordwood construction was in high school when I shadowed a consulting forester for career day. His home office was made of cordwood and provided me with my first forestry…

In logging, they say it takes iron to move wood. Eric Robinson’s job is to keep the iron moving. He’s part of the mobile service unit at CJ Logging Equipment, a Booneville, New…

Most of the forestry I see in southern Vermont can be characterized as “hunter-gatherer” forestry: the only management activity is timber harvesting, and harvesting is only done…

In the deep cold of the January nights, when the light of the Wolf Moon falls like ringing iron through the trees, from Tom’s Hill and Cathedral Hill on either side of the marsh and…

I have always loved wooden boats of all kinds, but especially dories, for their elegant simplicity of design, the way they look upon the water, the way they handle in a heavy sea, their rich…

If you wish to see tracks and sign of ruffed grouse, find the food. In early spring, when the deepest snowpack still lingers in the woods, chicken-sized grouse can be seen ponderously perching…

Photographer Abby Rowlee got this shot on an April night at her family’s sugarhouse (Hi-Hollow Maples) in Reading, Vermont, where the Rowlee family has lived and sugared for eight…

Trees speak many languages, their leaves whooshing in summer and trunks creaking in winter. At the onset of spring, trees become sounding boards for courtship. Before the thrushes and warblers…

It was probably 105 degrees in the shade – a typical July afternoon in southwestern Oklahoma. I crept closer to the rocky outcrop where I suspected the bobcat was trying to hide from the…

Sheila Bourque remembers well exactly when it all started. It was about five years ago. She had climbed Hacker’s Hill in the Maine town of Casco and arrived at the top to find a…

In an earlier era, before children, my husband and I would sometimes host workshops on our woodlot. One group in particular enjoyed using our property because, they enthused, we had such a…

Before Al Jordan was the preeminent bird carver in the Northeast; before his carvings were worth thousands of dollars and he’d won top prizes at the most prestigious wildlife art…

The alarm went off at 1 a.m. I got up, dressed, and sleepily attempted to eat some breakfast. My stomach protested, as this was not a normal time to be eating. Hitting the road, I noticed…

Snowy owls hail from the frozen tundra of the far north. However, during the coldest months of the year, they’ll often fly south in search of food. During the extremely cold winter of…