Blog and News

I took a walk before the rain from Sandy started early Monday morning. You could feel the low pressure and see an unusual pallor in the sky even in southern Vermont. One year and change past…

There were a series of public meetings this week in Vermont concerning a new industry-wide maple syrup classification system that will affect the whole Northeast. As it stands, each state has…

In the midst of like-minded company, like here in this blog, I often speak of the “woodlot” – the place my family goes to, among other things, cut firewood, make maple…

Editor’s Note: We recently hired Elise Tillinghast to be our new Executive Director. Those of you who live in the Upper Valley may know her from her work in area non-profits; regular…

It’s human nature to categorize, to organize, to put things in boxes. Take seasons. Conventional wisdom holds that Labor Day weekend is the last weekend of summer, and thus we are now…

The Center for Northern Woodlands Education is pleased to announce that Elise Tillinghast of Thetford Center, Vermont, has been selected as our new executive director. She will begin her…

To catch those of you who didn’t read the first blog post in this series up, our 20-year-old log cabin is rotting and full of carpenter ants. Rather than fix it, we’re cutting our…

While trying to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant, Raiders of the Lost Ark hero and noted ophidiophobe Indiana Jones finds himself in a hibernaculum full of hundreds of writhing snakes. I…

I was sixteen years old in 1992, the year we started work on our log cabin. We built it out of red pine that had probably been planted in the 1940s. Dad felled the trees and my brother,…

Chances are that some of your friends and business associates have a boilerplate at the bottom of their email that says something to the effect of: “think twice before printing…

A few weeks back, I was visited by two city friends from Brooklyn. In the interest of cultural exchange, I figured I’d make venison steaks and fresh-caught wild trout for dinner –…

Inchworms are one of the few creepy-crawlies I let skulk across my bare skin. Who doesn’t delight in the ridiculous arching of the worm’s body, followed by the exaggerated,…

The conventional thinking in the publishing world is that newspapers, books, and magazines will soon all be produced and distributed electronically. No more inky fingers; everything will be on…

Sure, OK, I love the environment. I want a canopy of green leaves to hike under each spring, blossoming wildflowers, pollinating bees, and bears that have plenty of land to roam. I know my…

My inbox has been full, of late, with press releases about the Sportsman’s Heritage Act, a hodge-podge of a bill that recently passed the House of Representatives. Some environmental…

When we think of non-timber forest products, we tend to think of wild edibles like fiddleheads, or maybe balsam fir needles for the incense market. We certainly don’t think of a forest…

So, sugaring season ended very abruptly and I'm letting myself off the hook for petering out on my maple blog by concentrating on the reflective nature of that act. Sugaring ended. I…

There have been several interesting cases involving media ethics in the news cycle of late. In January, theater artist Mike Daisey’s one-man show highlighting unsavory aspects of Apple’s…

More than a Woodlot: Getting the Most From Your Family Forest By: Stephen Long With: Virginia Barlow, Irwin Post, Michael Snyder, Charles Thompson and Chuck Wooster Order your copy! The…

February 13 – Day 1 It’s hard to decide when the first official day of sugaring season is. Maybe it’s in November, when you walk your sugarwoods and inventory the line…