Blog and News

If you’re new to forest management, it might be tempting to think that forestry is a pretty simple affair. There’s a book out there that tells you what a good stocking level is.…

I recently visited my family’s riverside farm in Virginia, where we’re a few years ahead of the Northeast in terms of eagle and osprey recovery from DDT (the “Silent…

While pulling taps the other day I was marveling at some big trees in our sugarbush – the largest is the 50-incher you see here. To think that it started its life competing with…

One of the first steps to understanding animal behavior is to recognize that many species interact with the world through their noses. Beavers are a prime example. Once they establish a…

Our farm bush shut down in early March, but the Hall bush is higher elevation and north facing and is still producing. We sold the sap we collected last week to a sugarmaker up the road, and…

In winter, camera trapping gets both harder and easier. The challenges include short days that limit the opportunity for color daytime photos, cold temperatures that can tax equipment, and a…

I boiled for 14 hours the other day, and in between draws and fire-loadings read a column by David Brooks in The New York Times about marriage. He said that people tend to view the institution…

We boiled our first sap of the year on February 21, and once it started, it ran pretty consistently until last Wednesday. By March 1 we’d made half a crop; we’re now at about 60…

This is my fifth year writing a sugaring journal for this editor’s blog, and one of the nice things about having a written record of an annual event is that you can go back and check…

Editor's note: This blog is by our friend Janet Pesaturo, a writer, educator, and CyberTracker certified wildlife tracker. Check out her wildlife tracking programs here. Foxes are…

This past autumn, Northern Woodlands circulated a “woods savvy” quiz, with the promise to announce the winners today. The quiz featured 10 multiple choice questions, and we had a…

I think I speak for all of us in expressing thanks for the natural order that’s been restored by January’s cold. Two weekends ago I was still afraid to walk on the lake ice around…

Editor’s Note: This blog is by our friend Don Wharton; check out Don’s story on Adirondack hermits in our Winter 2015 issue. Six or seven years ago, a friend and I made a concerted…

I help parent a teenage boy, who’s hard at work developing a portfolio of unassailable convictions. If my parents were to read this they’d smile and say: gosh, that all sounds…

Rangifer tarandus var. rudolphus, also known as the aerial caribou (or aerial reindeer in Europe) lives most of the year in more northern latitudes. However, its appearance in the United…

We hung a grizzled old deer in camp this year who was in less than ideal condition, meat-wise. He was sort of randy smelling in general – just all rutted up and glandular. That a shot…

Earlier this year I had a chance to try out some electric (battery-powered) chainsaws. My expectations going in were pretty low: I figured that they would either be laughingly toy-like in…

Consider the givens in life, those moments of predictability that stand out in a constantly changing world. The sun rises in the east, for instance. The sky is blue. Or how about this one:…

By now, hunters around the Northeast are counting the days until (deer hunting) rifle season. In the spirit of the season, we thought we’d share this series of pictures that we took on…

We’re still recovering from our big annual Writers & Readers Conference, while also putting the final touches on the winter issue of the magazine. So this week, in lieu of an…