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Knots and Bolts

Red versus Sugar

There you are, leaning against a big maple in your sugarbush, drill and tap at the ready, when you think, “Wait a minute…is this a red maple or a sugar maple?” While maples…

The Ants Go Marching

And so do the spiders, the springtails, the beetles, and the wasps. If you’ve ever been out for a walk in the woods on a balmy day in late winter or early spring, you’ve probably…

Hold that Embryo

In most of the animal kingdom, it’s the same story: egg meets sperm, embryo forms, and life emerges a set number of weeks afterwards. In humans, birth happens approximately 40 weeks…

Tick or Treat

Last Halloween, biology students at U-32 High School in Montpelier, Vermont, got all decked out – not to go trick or treating – but in a search for deer ticks. They donned Tyvek…

Maul vs. Axe

If you want to identify yourself as someone who knows nothing about the subject, announce that you’re headed out to the woodshed to chop some firewood. Chopping firewood went out of…

Correction

In our story, “Putting Wood in Your Gas Tank,” in the Spring 2006 issue, it was stated that the part of the corn plant that was being made into ethanol is the stover – the…

Getting a Fix on Declination

“You can’t get there from here” is a classic Yankee punchline, usually delivered at the end of a joke involving an old-timer, a bewildered tourist, and a location somewhere over hill and…

The Outdoors Comes In

When summer downpours drive you indoors, or you’re weary from a day-hiking or canoeing, you might be surprised to find that the outdoors can be found inside, on a television station near…

Indian Pipe

An oddity in the plant world is the roughly one percent of plant species that do not manufacture their own carbohydrates via photosynthesis. Instead, these plants are parasites, stealing…

Against All Odds

Working as a consultant forester, I get to see some unusual things in the forest, but what I found last winter on a woodlot in Ludlow, Vermont, truly amazed me. This woodlot is owned by…

Ben’s Bears Go High-Tech

Tucked in the deep, hilly woods of west-central New Hampshire are several bears, and a man, who are famous by virtue of their relationship with one another. Mother Bear Man – aka Ben…

The Greatest Good

The U.S. Forest Service has finalized its latest Forest Plan for the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire and Maine, and you can be excused for having missed it. Compared with the…

The Current State of Current Use

The six New England states and New York each have some sort of property tax system in place specifically for owners of forestland. These programs are generally referred to as “current…

Downright Downeast

Of all the land conservation projects in the Northern Forest over the past two decades, the most hopeful might be the Downeast Lakes Forestry Partnership, which was concluded this past summer…

Family Forest Owners Hold the Cards

Private forests, especially in the eastern U.S., are being converted to non-forest uses at an unprecedented rate, according to a new U.S. Forest Service report. The report, Forests on the…

Taking Winter with a Grain of Salt

Spreading salt to make treacherous ice magically disappear from road surfaces must have seemed brilliant in the early days of its use. Naturally occurring, abundant, and cheap, road salt…

Whittling Down the Fuel Bill

Here’s something you already knew: home heating oil and propane prices are up roughly 50 percent from a year ago across the Northeast. More old news: same with firewood. But what your local…

Plum Creek’s Big Plan

In April, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) received a petition that could change the nature of development in the backwoods of Maine. The proposal from the Plum Creek Timber…

Chronic Wasting Disease Reaches New York

With the recent arrival of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in New York state, officials from agriculture and fish and game departments throughout the Northeast have been scrambling to stop its…

It’s New Hampshire’s Turn to Deal with Liquidators

Vermont and Maine have each gone through a period of great concern over liquidation harvesting. Now it seems to be New Hampshire’s turn. Liquidation harvesting is a term given to the…