Last year was a record-setting fire season out West, and national news stories about forests and fire were often tragic. However, Caren Caljouw, the prescribed fire program manager for the…

Pine barrens are sparsely vegetated shrublands, woodlands, and semi-open forests found in the Northeastern United State on sandy xeric soils. Barrens are often referred to as pine barrens, pine…

There’s something about the angle of light on early spring days in Vermont, when the snow cover is almost gone, and the sun shines through the stark canopy right down to the forest floor. The…

Viiu Niiler of Marshfield, Vermont, is the consummate artist: a lifelong painter, glassmaker, tapestry weaver, fashion designer, gourmet cook, master gardener, and musician. Considered a kind of…

Sitting on the passenger’s side floor of my pickup are three broken axes/mauls, all succumbed to the same fate by excited friends and neighbors who had “wooded” and snapped their…

The moon not yet up, we forage in near darkness, out back in the woods, the wet spot to the north, where they grow in clumps, bunched like fists, and push their first wound heads through earth in…

The short video above explains how to use a Buckthorn Blaster to control invasive plants. As our forests awaken from a long winter, some plants green-up sooner than others. While many of our native…

From the first harsh (but oh-so-welcome) kong-ga-ree of a red-winged blackbird as early as late February, to the complex and voluptuous harmonic of a wood thrush in mid-May, our northern forest…

It’s a hot, humid August morning in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the kind that usually yields thunder and lightning by day’s end. But at nearby Buck Lake – just 700 feet higher in the…

Mainly nocturnal and amazingly well camouflaged, eastern screech-owls can be very difficult to spot. Weighing a mere 4 to 8 ounces, these short, stocky owls often roost in tree cavities. Photographer…

At the small-town middle school I attended, all students were required to take woodshop and home economics in 4th grade. I didn’t really take to sewing, but working with wood and learning to use…

In my home state of Vermont, annual Town Meeting Day takes place at the chilly edge of spring. Vermonters rightly take pride in the usual civility of these events. That said, early March can be a…