The Outside Story

For some, spring begins with the flow of maple sap, or maybe the arrival of robins or redwing blackbirds. For inveterate gardeners the new season never really starts until the soil can be…

Winter’s effect on animals isn’t always noticeable. Often, it’s because they’ve flown south, are hibernating, or are hunkered down, having reduced their activity to cope with cold and…

Last month, while taking advantage of the open winter to cut brush around the edges of our pasture, I thought back to one of my favorite lectures in college. The professor was a Maine native…

Keeping chickens at the edge of a forest is always a gamble. Foxes, raccoons, skunks, weasels, fishers, and coyotes can sally forth at any time from the shadows of the woods in search of a…

Our brook in February is not yet in flood stage, nor is it in full throat, although now I can hear it from the house. If I could stir myself sufficiently, I’d approach the brook’s…

Each winter morning, like thousands of other New Englanders, my wife and I feed the birds before we feed ourselves. For us, it’s like a field trip around the property as we restock two…

Bacteria – and other micro-organisms – get a bad rap. All winter long, we wash our hands to keep them away. We sanitize our dishes in a dishwasher, our clothes in the washing…

Here’s an important point to make for those of you deeply concerned about climate change: We’re not going to solve the problem by promoting forest growth. It’s true that trees sequester…

Whenever a frigid overcast day comes along, I develop a powerful urge to return to bed for a spell. So does Monty, the cat, who after rising for breakfast and watching birds through a frosted…

Some time ago our neighbor called me over at dusk to observe a flying squirrel eating seed at his bird feeder. I had never encountered this animal and was most intrigued. Afterwards I said to…

Winter in Northern New England is challenging for birds that don’t migrate south. To survive, a bird must find adequate food, refuge from wind and cold, and protection from predators.…

When nature calls, a birdwatcher should consider spishing in the woods. Nature calling, in this case, is the unmusical peeps, chips, tweets and whits of songbirds in winter. Lacking the…

Three months ago, our fields and forests buzzed and chirped with six-legged life: cicadas overhead, crickets underfoot. Now snow has blanketed the landscape, and they and most other insects…

The winter holidays are a wonderful time to learn about nature. After all, is there another time of year when we kiss under a parasitic plant? Or sing about decorating our halls with…

Last winter while walking in snow near my home in Worcester, Vt., I encountered a set of unusual paw prints by a creek. Curious, I followed the trail, my head bowed toward the ground, until…

So you think you’re tough surviving a northern New England winter? Well, consider the amazingly resilient “water bears,” creatures that live all around us but that can only be seen…

Question: Why has Vermont always been considered New England’s farm state? Answer: Geology, as in rocks and soils. Because of the limestone and other calcareous rocks underlying much of…

Conventional wisdom says that if you put up a bird feeder on Nov. 1 and take it down on April 1, you won’t have a problem with marauding bears, because they hibernate between those…

When we bought our old farmhouse 40 years ago, its source of water was a spring that gushed from a hillside. The water seemed clean thanks in part to gravel that had been placed on the muddy…

There is something odd about a moth flying through the woods in the angled daylight of November. Moths and November ordinarily mix about as well as fire and water. It’s basically too cold…