The Outside Story

Have you ever been walking through the woods on a snowy afternoon and seen a bit of green poking up through the snow? Seeing the green fronds of a fern at this time of year may seem like an…

My father, who notices these things, once noticed that the newspapers seemed to be misprinting the times of sunrise and sunset in December. They said the sun wouldn’t start rising earlier…

In mid-winter of 725 A.D., a 52-year-old cleric named Boniface chopped down the great Donar oak in the German territory of Hesse, thus depriving the Hessians of their traditional symbol of the…

When it comes to nature, we tend to stuff things we don’t know into pigeonholes that are already defined by the familiar. If someone tells me their cat has left a “present”…

So you think you’re a Sagittarius, right? Or an Aquarius? Well, think again. According to the horoscopes, I’m supposed to be a Virgo. Yet there’s absolutely no doubt that I’m a Leo.…

The winter coats are out, as are the hats, scarves, and mittens. We humans are hoping for lots of sunny days this winter to help keep our spirits lifted through the darkest days of the…

Here’s a question for the season: where does all that mulch go? Farmers and gardeners across Vermont and New Hampshire have laid down thick carpets of mulch – leaves, hay, straw,…

In recent years, the crepuscular wailing of coyotes has become as much a part of autumn in Vermont and New Hampshire as falling leaves and wood smoke. But coyote voices are not music to…

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has recently been discovered in the Northeast for the first time. CWD is a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (brain disease) that is similar to mad…

If autumn had a sound track, one of its main themes would be the honking of Canada geese as they slice the gray sky in their ever-shifting V-shaped formations. But if the call of the Canada…

Our local forests are generally susceptible to fire each year during two very short, dry periods. The first is when mud season has ended and the flush of green understory plants has yet to…

Our organic vegetable farm sits deep in the Connecticut River valley, a few hundred feet above the river and more than a thousand feet below the top of the valley’s walls. On autumn…

The shape that tree leaves take is mostly an adaptation to shade and sun; leaves are tailored to optimize the production of food and oxygen under conditions that range from parched desert to…

We’ve all fallen for it at some point, those of us who spend time in the woods: the way it looks now is the way it always has looked. And the way it always will look. And why not? When…

Who loves a ladybug? Until recently, everyone did. These tiny beetles gobble aphids and other soft-bodied insects that plague crops and ornamental plants. It is said that their name refers to…

Forest scientists who study global warming in the northeast say that a warmer climate could lead to later and lackluster leaf peeping. Three different things could cause this to happen, acting…

Go out in your yard some evening this fall, cock your head towards the sky, and listen. Thrushes, warblers, sparrows, and blackbirds will be swiftly moving across the night sky toward their…

“If you want to be recalled for something that you do, you will be well advised to do it under an Elm – a great Elm, for such a tree outlives the generations of men; the burning issues…

It’s a magnificent bird – one of the largest woodpeckers in North America. Its plumage is striking, with stripes of black and white feathers and a bright red crest. It can be shy.…

We humans have a knack for believing that everything was better, more vivid, more extreme, or at least more memorable when we were younger. The snow was deeper. The foliage was more beautiful.…