To catch those of you who didn’t read the first blog post in this series up, our 20-year-old log cabin is rotting and full of carpenter ants. Rather than fix it, we’re cutting our losses…

What kind of egg is this, shining in the sunlight? Photo by Bryan Pfeiffer.

When felling trees, Plan A has the tree falling right where you want it to go. Once you hang one up, though - and even the best of us do - the game changes and it's time for Plan B. If you've…

When an undertaking is just too big for one person, folks tend to form groups. We’re all familiar with this in a blue collar sense – the concept of a barn raising, say. But the idea that…

Imagine a life that smells like Christmas – that rich, deep-woods aroma of balsam that fills living rooms every December. For Jack and Wendy Newmeyer, it’s the cozy smell of livelihood.…

Move over emerald ash-borer and hemlock wooly adelgid. There’s a new invasive pest in town, and it may be coming to a viburnum near you. The viburnum leaf beetle, (Pyrrhalta viburni) was first…

Warming Up with Wood Pellets A History of Fire Towers in the Northeast Lessons from Last Year's Foliage Trapping in the 21st Century Warblers and Ice Cream, Foraging for Wild Nuts, Chainsaws…

Hidden in cattails, I was hoping to photograph moose feeding in a nearby cove. Suddenly a V-shaped wake appeared in the water and a muskrat swam vigorously towards me. The creature resembled an…

Dianne Shullenberger, Yellow Peony, 12” x 11”, fabric and thread, 2006 The surprise in Dianne Shullenberger’s work is that her “paintings” are not made with paint. Her…

If you saw a yellow-striped snake, could you tell whether it was a garter snake or a ribbon snake? To the untrained eye, the eastern ribbon snake looks like a thin gartersnake, the most common snake…

This photo was taken along a Vermont dirt road in mid-July. Who is this yellow fellow?

While trying to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant, Raiders of the Lost Ark hero and noted ophidiophobe Indiana Jones finds himself in a hibernaculum full of hundreds of writhing snakes. I don’t…

Have you ever air-dried a stack of pine boards and wondered why some bowed and some didn’t? Or noted that perfectly constructed joints swelled to a not-so-perfect fit in the summer? Or found…

Chainsaws are powerful tools, and you’ll work more quickly, safely, and efficiently if you own a good one. But with all the options out there, buying a chainsaw can be an overwhelming…

Those interested in observing the night sky are often frustrated by the glow of population centers and street lights that makes it difficult to see all but the brightest stars. But stargazers…

When we bought the old farm two decades ago, the Ghost Tree came with it. He was an old sugar maple with a knothole face, tears in the trunk and branch stubs. He looks like one of the Ents, the…

Acid rain has long been known to acidify the calcium-poor soils in parts of the Northeast, resulting in declines in sugar maple and other important tree species. New research by ecologists at the…

When it rains, the cupped leaf of the pitcher plant becomes so slick that ants, spiders, and other prey attracted to its sweet aroma slide into the plant, where they drown and are dissolved by plant…

It’s been five years since biologists found the first bats killed by white-nose syndrome in a cave near Albany, New York. It’s been four years since the first dead bats were found in…

Editor’s Note: On December 31, 2011, Cameron Cope passed away. Orange County, Vermont, lost a good logger, and former Vermont State Naturalist, Charles Johnson, lost a good friend. Here,…