Knots and Bolts

In 1926, newlyweds Alva and Mildred Richardson moved to the wilds of New Hampshire. Alva was just starting a job as a U.S. Forest Guard in the recently established White Mountain National…

My work as a field ecologist has taken me to some rugged and remote places. I’ve kayaked lakes and rivers, trekked through hot, mosquito-infested wetlands, and spent entire seasons above…

A cloud of reddish dust rose behind our car as we drove down a series of dirt U.S. Forest Service roads southeast of Williams, Arizona. It was September 2019, and we were headed for a hike at…

Miterwort (Mitella diphylla), also called bishop’s cap, is named for the resemblance of its two-peaked fruits to the hats (known as miters) worn by bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.…

Dave Ireland is showing off his woods. Well, not his woods, exactly. We’re walking along a dirt road on Mount Desert Island. The waves and the brisk coastal wind whisper in the distance.…

I have always had a sweet tooth. And, outside of the berry season, I’ve often found it hard to satisfy my sweet tooth as a forager. Plants, of course, are constantly manufacturing sugar…

Brothers Bruce and David Bovill have been working together most of their lives. They grew up in the small northern New Hampshire town of Colebrook, and remember hand-loading 4-foot spruce…

American basswood (Tilia americana) is known for the alluring scent and abundant nectar of its flowers, as well as its lightweight, odorless wood that lends itself to the production of food…

As with people, it takes time to know a plant. During a year, an individual plant will look very different from one season to the next. For those of us inclined to eat them, knowing plants in…

Take a walk through the wooded mountains of North Central Pennsylvania and you may catch a glimpse of a magnificent animal, previously extirpated in the state. Throughout a 3,500-square-mile…

Back in 1997, the state forester reviewing a habitat improvement grant application for a property on the northwestern edge of Worcester, Massachusetts, remarked that the proposal was “a…

When the Northeast Silviculture Institute for Foresters kicked off its tour of two-day workshops in May 2017, it had been nearly 15 years since I had any formal coursework in silviculture.…

Chances are, you’ve already eaten cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon) as a tart Thanksgiving condiment whose congealed sauce keeps the shape of its supermarket can. When I was young, I…

A while back I needed to take down a big dead sugar maple. I wanted to figure out the height and how much wood was in it. It was close enough to the road that I ended up getting an arborist to…

Nobody knows who introduced garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) from Europe to North America, but whoever it was must have brought it for its flavor. Anyone who has smelled the crushed plant…

Often, I jest that my husband David and I bought our woodlot as a shared “midlife crisis.” But rather than a passing fancy, stewarding our forestland has truly become an integral…

Geoff Dennis took this photo during a migratory fallout on Monhegan Island. On May 17, 2011, flocks of warblers, flying over the Gulf of Maine on their way to northern forests, were caught in…

With pantlegs stuffed into our boots to ward off ticks, my wife Kathryn and I trudged after Si Balch, our licensed forester, straight into a spruce thicket next to our house. The going was…

Take a volcanic hotspot at a crossroads of ocean currents, isolate it 600 miles from the nearest landmass, and place it under the equatorial sun. Wait a few million years, allowing seeds and…

Poplar (also called aspen) buds are an important winter food source for many species of wildlife, but particularly for the ruffed grouse. During the course of a year, a ruffed grouse may feed…