In the old days, ladybeetles (or ladybugs) used to “flyaway home” to their children, as per the old nursery rhyme. Now one species, the Halloween ladybeetle, is instead flying into our…

Management Stories From North America's Northern, Northern Woodlands When I say “northern Quebec” to most people, I either get blank looks or they say something vague about how…

Trees are about half water, maybe a little less in winter. And if the temperature drops low enough, the water in even the most cold-hardy tree will freeze. So how do trees survive below-freezing…

What created these slices in the snow?

The potential Christmas tree before you is conical, its cones dangling from skyward-curving branches, scaly bark covering its tapered trunk. Short, four-sided needles radiate spirally from each twig…

“That’s a downy. No wait, it’s a hairy – definitely a hairy. Well, hang on...maybe it is a downy.” I admit it: I’ve had this happen to me more than once. With the…

What is this miniature ice formation? Photo by Patricia Jaquith.

In August, New York State officials announced that the state will purchase 69,000 acres of former Finch-Pruyn lands in the Adirondacks. Those lands must be classified under the state’s…

“What a horrifyingly garish sight,” I said to my friend as we surveyed my Christmas tree last year. We had just finished decorating it and my eyes were sending messages to my brain, like,…

Walking through our old Christmas tree plantation, the fragrance of balsam fir evokes memories of dragging freshly cut trees to the baler, riding on the top of a wagon full of trees, and sharing a…

Animals display a dazzling variety of colors, particularly in the tropics. But even here in northern New England where wildlife diversity is comparatively limited, we enjoy a rich palette of colors…

What is this rusty piece of machinery lying (standing?) in the woods? Photo by Richard Cofrancesco.

We marked around 80,000 feet of marginal- to low-grade white pine in our woods recently, and the first jag – about half – has been cut and shipped north to Canada. The truckers were…

Of the billions of trees in the Northeast, I’ve known maybe 50 well, maybe 10 with a draw-from-memory intimacy. The apple trees I prune each year in the yard, for instance, or the sugar maple…

A few years back, we had some family friends over for a cookout. One of them looked up at the long, straight rows of Christmas trees growing on our hillside in the distance. “It looks just like…

It seems each autumn, I start noticing sunsets more. They are so pink, so orange, so bright. I’ve always chalked up my autumnal sunset attention to my mood shifting with the changing season;…

I heard about Joe Wheelwright before I knew him – that’s the natural order of things in a small town. “There’s this guy out in East Corinth who turns trees into men.”…

Cree Tradition & Transition in Northern Canada Christmas on the Tree Farm The Man Who Freed a Giant Beech Party on Your Woodlot A Harlequin (Duck) Romance, an essay by Vermont Poet Laureate…

Those of us who live in the Northeast are familiar with the vicissitudes of winter. We know firsthand that not every day sparkles with rime ice or delivers fluffy drifts of sun-dappled snow. We know…

Photographer Roger Irwin took this photo of his friend Phil Stearns on a small beaver pond in Groveton, New Hampshire, on a brittle, early-winter day.