Knots and Bolts

I’m out hunting an unlikely target: mosquitoes. At each stop along the road, I pull on a bug net and gaiters, wrestle a cylindrical vacuum and battery pack onto my shoulder, and head to…

The view from atop the great Mayan pyramids of Tikal, in Guatemala’s Petén region, reveals something that is increasingly difficult to find in the tropics these days: unbroken…

It was early, even for the birds, when photographer Bill Byrne and I arrived at Jim Conkey’s sawmill in New Salem, Massachusetts. C & M Rough Cut is nestled in the woods just a…

There’s no mistaking the stinging nettle. Sure, its paired, heart-shaped, coarsely-toothed leaves are easy to spot. But it’s the painful burning sensation one gets from even a…

According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, last winter was among the top five coldest on record in Ithaca, New York, when you consider the number of days the…

Yes, foraging can be risky. But most people approach wild foods with unnecessary caution. Foragers are often the subject of anxious looks even when nibbling wild plants that are no more…

Most of us have been trained to picture a cord of wood as a neatly stacked pile measuring 4x4x8 feet. But how much of that 128-cubic-foot rectangle is wood and how much is air? Searching on…

As I make the drive from my suburban home to my country property – a 75-acre woodlot in the northern part of Allegany County, New York – I reflect on that piece of land with great…

Watch old footage of a lumberjack using a crosscut saw (colloquially called a misery whip) – or better yet, pick one up at a farm auction and try it out yourself – and you’ll…

Standing in a supermarket amidst frozen dinners, bakery items, and cereals, it’s easy to forget the work involved in preparing food. While it is wonderful to be relieved of so much work,…

My greenhouse has had a lot of jobs over the years. Originally, it was intended to grow greens in winter and start seedlings in spring. Later, it served as a barn for sheep and goats. Now, it…

“We had an old Corley semi-automatic carriage mill in a little 40-by-80-foot building when we started,” said Dave Buxton, who founded New England Forest Products (NEFP) with his…

Twenty years ago, I planted 1,600 black walnut seedlings on a site a few miles outside of Barre, in central Vermont. Four years later, I planted another 700. A dairy farm had operated on the…

Four thousand years ago, the native people of North America’s eastern woodlands cultivated a protein-rich superfood. Variously called lamb’s-quarters, goosefoot, or pigweed, the…

Teddy Roosevelt was president when F.E. Hale purchased a factory in Herkimer, New York, and started making wooden bookcases. Hale retired in 1918, but the company that bears his name continues…

The black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) is a woody member of the pea family (Fabaceae or Leguminosae), and a close examination of its winged flowers, bean-like pods, and pinnately compound…

Everett Towle is retired, but plenty active. As a sixth generation resident of Buxton, Maine, Towle inherited several parcels of forestland. He added more over the years, and now owns eight…

Until the 1940s, most Christmas trees were cut from forests. Now they’re harvested from tree plantations. The maple sugarbush may soon be making a similar move from forest to field. In…

Many places have fantastical creatures: the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, Sweden’s skvader (half hare, half wood grouse), and, of course, the Pacific Northwest’s tree octopus. The…

Black birch tea was one of the first wild foods I ever tried. Some high school friends boiled pots of birch twigs to make what they called “brew” while telling jokes and stories…