Blog and News

Before the Schwarzenegger sex scandal restored order to the media universe, national news coverage had been dominated by images and stories from the Mississippi Delta, where poor, rural…

Editor’s Note: This week’s blog features the musings of founding editor Ginny Barlow. I was on a lovely walk with Chris last fall, just meandering around on a sunny day, crisp leaves,…

Editor’s Note: This week’s blog features the musings of our Executive Director, Walter Medwid. The package of chestnut lumber arrived. Maybe a dozen pieces of various lengths, all in…

Day 2 Life accelerates as we get older, a phenomenon that most of us first notice as school kids, when summer vacations go from endless in elementary school to blink-your-eyes-and-it’s-done…

To be human is to be self-conscious, so it’s only natural that we wonder where we came from. Some people take this to extravagant lengths, forking over hundreds of dollars to get DNA…

I think the title’s a bit too shrill in this news piece about proposed maple syrup standards in Vermont, but I think the piece is well written and the topic is an interesting one.…

The State of Vermont has been holding public hearings on a proposed expansion of the state’s deer and moose hunting seasons this month, and most hunters who’ve attended these meetings have…

By the time you get the spring issue of Northern Woodlands, the magic and majesty of winter will have devolved into miserable weather, an empty propane tank, and the truck buried to its frame…

Growing up, the tree farm that my family managed for timber and maple syrup production had a Christmas tree component – 10,000 little seedlings, mostly white spruce, balsam fir, and…

NPR produced a nice piece recently on New England cottontail restoration efforts in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. You can listen and/or read a transcript here. For those not familiar with this…

Hi all, So things are good up in the mountains. Whereas my opening week last year was colored by an Ahab-like obsession on a 140-class buck, this year has been more peaceful and easy-going,…

Most jobs involve deadlines – periods of high stress interspersed with moments of relative calm. But since an editor’s job involves assembling words and pictures to produce a kind of…

My birddog, Woody, figured it all out last night. He’s a 6-year-old English cocker, bred to find and flush birds. Unfortunately, I just haven’t hunted with him enough in the last few years…

As we age, we get smarter but we feel dumber, one of those human condition quirks that poets are always pondering. Country singers from Kenny Rodgers on up have lamented the ignorance of youth…

The open road – the notion of high adventure just over the county line – holds a special place in the American imagination. Media types are especially drawn to the idea, as we’re…

My friend Kris and I met in Mrs. Kevorkian’s kindergarten class, which means I’ve been a bad influence on him for almost thirty years now. When I suffer from panic attacks brought on by…

If you haven’t already received your autumn issue of Northern Woodlands you should get it any day now. When friends ask me how I think the issue turned out, I tell them that I don’t know…

At this time of year, honeybees fly in and out of their hive in such numbers that on a sunny day there’s danger of a log jam at the entrance, as some bees scramble to get out to forage and…

I spent part of yesterday on my belly at the base of a tree with a knife and a length of wire in my hand. I was trying to kill something. The tree was an apple, a Cox’s Orange Pippin to be…

Editor’s Note: Walter Medwid, the Executive Director of Northern Woodlands, is on blog duty this week. Before joining the team at Northern Woodlands, I served as Executive Director at…