Remnants of summer’s tall goldenrod don’t look like much in November, yet they harbor unseen lives. Globular swellings partway up the stems suggest a strange departure from the normal…

The author of this remarkable book states that his goal is “to present an accurate account of the seriousness of today’s global environmental challenges…and to offer a strategy for…

Through his books and his work as an educator, Tom Wessels teaches people how to observe and interpret ecological landscapes. His latest book, The Myth of Progress, reflects something of a new…

Like no other element of the New England landscape, stone walls relentlessly remind us of the challenging existence faced by those who settled this corner of the world. Stone walls chronicle the…

The prices reported here are those that log buyers—mostly sawmills and wholesalers—are paying for logs. Because these are prices paid for delivered wood, landowners need to adjust the…

Dave Bowman is both timber framer and woodlands philosopher. He seems to enjoy the solitude of his shop as much as a visit with the people that come by with a delivery, order, or consultation. With…

Extensive wetlands often have masses of winterberry. From afar, its abundant, bright red berries sometimes cause large areas of wetland shrubbery to glow with a reddish orange color well into the…

Last winter, I went on a photography binge, trying to get as many pictures of common and good looking fungus specimens as I could find in my neighborhood. I knew at the start that I was attracted to…

“Windsor furniture is, I believe, the most characteristically American and the most historically significant furniture style to emerge from eighteenth-century America. It is a democratic style,…

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 after…

Does Sugaring with a Vacuum Pump Hurt the Trees? Sap flows out of tap holes in sugar maples when the spring days are warm and the nights are freezing, because those conditions make the pressure on the…

Brook trout are often cited as “indicator species” of stream health. They require clean, cold water, so finding them in abundance means you have an especially healthy stream. A healthy…

Finding the kill site was easy. A few days earlier, on the first morning of rifle season, a pair of nearby shots had cracked the frosty quiet of sunrise. I was curious whether the hunter had been…

Even the first lamb had needed help, but delivering the second one required the expertise of someone with much more shepherding experience than me. Instead, on the coldest night we’ve ever had…

I’ve had an attraction to forests for a long time. It’s right there in my high school yearbook: “I will be studying forestry at ….” After college, I thought I would end…

Steve Hagenbuch looked up from a thicket of glossy-leaved shrubs and said, “Given the buckthorn problem here, I think single-tree selection might be the best approach. Group selection will let…

Garlic mustard is trouble. Unlike many other invasive plants, it doesn’t stop at the forest edge. It thrives in partial shade and so has no trouble growing in forest understories. It can grow…

In my youth, I was an avid fisherman who listened to heavy metal music. But today’s anglers catch heavy metal on a hook while singing the blues, because many of the fish commonly taken for sport…

Autumn is closing fast. We toss wood on the fire, button up the house, adjust to lengthening hours of darkness, and believe wild things are going about their own preparatory tasks. My lawns and fields…

The beaver floated with its head sticking up out of the water and just stared at me. In the early twilight, the beaver’s constant presence was menacing. It clearly wanted the pool to itself and…