And then it came. After weeks of historic cold, the weather finally broke on March 30. There’s a comic strip that hangs on the wall of our sugarhouse, where a sugarmaker drills a hole in…
Blog and News
Dispatch from the Sugarwoods 2014 – Part 2
We’ve boiled twice since my last blog post, and both times were in support of pretty minor runs. Our season total is 67 gallons of syrup, which puts us at about 8 percent of a crop. Last…
Dispatch from the Sugarwoods 2014 - Part 1
As our sugaring operation grows, it gets harder to tell where one season ends and the next begins. From a production standpoint, last season ended on April 9, 2013, which is a logical place to…
An Old School Winter
We hear all the time about how winter’s disappearing in this era of climate change (The New York Times recently ran a piece called “The End of Snow?”), so I can’t help…
Thoughts on Proposed Changes to Vermont’s Current Use Program
I flew out of Albany, New York, the other day. It was nice and clear and you could look down and see the sprawl – the ordered, grid-like subdivisions from the 1950s immediately around…
Sunsets in Winter
One of the best things about winter is the sunsets. In the summertime, when the air’s soupy and thick, the horizon is often fuzzed out by a skein of haze. The sunsets can be nice, sure,…
What in the Woods is That? Quiz Winners Announced
This past November, as part of Northern Woodlands’ fall fundraising effort, we published a quiz with nine mystery photos and challenged readers to identify any three of them in a line (a…
Trying to Throw my Mind Around a Story
One of the ways we try to differentiate ourselves from the traditional environmental media is by looking at things evenly. For example, a press release showed up in my inbox the other day with…
The New Hand on Deck
Thanks to everyone at Northern Woodlands for the warm welcome I’ve received as the magazine’s new assistant editor. It’s a personal and professional pleasure to be working…
Should I Burn Wood?
Environmental scientist Robert Cabin pointed out recently in a story that ran in Earth Island Journal that political liberals in general, and environmentalists in particular, can put an…