Blog and News

This past weekend, Northern Woodlands held its 4th annual conference, a gathering of over 140 writers, editors, readers, foresters, educators, artists, scientists, naturalists, and others who…

It’s probably safe to assume that most readers of this magazine are well aware that firewood needs to be reasonably dry before it’s burned, and that it’s a pain to move, so…

Like a lot of hunters, I keep tabs on the deer around our camp with trail cameras that are left up year-round. This particular four-day window presents a couple of nice, teachable moments…

A writer who’d recently had a piece of writing rejected by a magazine once told me that the experience was like walking into an interview and being asked: “I’m thinking of a…

A Conversation with J.T. Horn of The Trust for Public Land On October 20th, about 140 writers, artists, students, and scientists will gather at the Hulbert Outdoor Center to participate in the…

Harvard Forest released a report last week that’s been grabbing headlines – you can read it here. The big news is that between 1990 and 2010, New England lost 24,000 acres of…

We’ve been rebuilding a major section of one of our sugarbushes this summer with the idea that this time we’re going to do it right. We first started building this particular bush…

For years, as a committed insect ecologist, I resisted student requests to work on mammals. My objections included bite risk, rabies shots, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee forms…

Some months, like some people, have a very strong sense of who and what they are. May is spring. July and August are summer. October is fall. January, February are winter. If these months had…

A co-worker sent me this email the other day: Hi there, a very lovely elderly subscriber just called and he wants to know more about what has happened to the forest industry over the past…

The fisher darted through the trees from one overgrown field to another. The narrowest sliver of moon had set: a perfect night for hunting. Three hours later, just before midnight, it bounded…

A friend shared this great video with me the other day of Neil Young – not the pop star but a town-elder-type from around these parts – recounting a bobbin mill fire he fought in…

This is more of an iPhone camera tale. I do have a game camera – a Moultrie M-550 – and I use it in somewhat clumsy attempts to glean information about which animals move through…

When people – myself included – write about forestry they tend to focus on the treatments or harvests as though they’re the story. It’s where the action is. But, of…

“Where should I look to find chanterelles?” someone asked the other day. And I said look on rich soil and poor soil, wet sites and dry sites, under hardwoods and under conifers. In…

There was an interesting profile, written by Ellen Barry, which ran in the New York Times this past spring about a guy named T. N. Pandit, an anthropologist from India who spent the 1960s and…

We have a patch of about 100 pink moccasin lady’s slippers in our woods, and every year, some of the blossoms get munched. We assumed that deer were the culprits. There’s a deer…

We ended our last game camera entry this way: For our next installment, we’ll set a camera up in some edge habitat on the top of a mountain in a wilderness area. We wonder what the ratio…

“It’s chaos,” I said. Then: “I’ll call you back.” There was poop on the couch and, I’d just noticed, on my pants. I put the phone down and reached for…

Each fall, the Northern Woodlands Conference brings together people with diverse backgrounds for a weekend of boundary-spanning workshops and conversation. While forests provide a setting and…