Trout season opened recently in most of the Northeast, and in the spirit of the season, I thought I’d share a fishing story in this week’s blog that I wrote in 2009. Good luck to all you…

Let’s face it: trees are better off in the woods. Although forest trees – like their more urban counterparts – face many threats to growth and survival, at least in the woods they…

Last year, May first was about as nice a spring day as you could ask for. Dawn broke cool, maybe a touch of frost in the cold spots, but the sky was high – just blue jay blue – and it was…

For all the time we spend watching birds during the breeding season, rarely do we get to see birds actually breeding. That’s because avian copulation usually lasts only seconds. Birds mate by…

There’s no arguing spring with the dandelions. When they bloom, I know that winter’s finally outta here. By May, my fields and yard are dusted with that mellow dandelion yellow. I…

Teddy Roosevelt was president when F.E. Hale purchased a factory in Herkimer, New York, and started making wooden bookcases. Hale retired in 1918, but the company that bears his name continues today.…

I walked into my bathroom late one night and was horrified to see something that looked like a tick with scorpion pinchers as large as the rest of its body. It was crawling up the wall. I managed not…

It’s not a waffle, but there is a connection.

I think we left off right about the time the weather broke and the sap started flowing. Well, flow it did. In nine days, we septupled the amount of syrup we made in the previous month. After that, we…

When snow drifts linger into late April and freezing rain challenges new blossoms, mother bears and their infant cubs seek out wetland edge habitats. Seepage areas and vernal pools, as well as bogs,…

Clambakes, fried clams, clam diggers, clam shacks ― we usually associate clams with the ocean. You may have also seen freshwater clams in rivers and lakes. But did you know there are clams that…

The black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) is a woody member of the pea family (Fabaceae or Leguminosae), and a close examination of its winged flowers, bean-like pods, and pinnately compound leaves will…

Krummholz is the original bonsai. Stunted and gnarled, it grows in rugged environments: cliffs, mountaintops, canyon walls. Often very old, it inspires us with its tenacity in the face of harsh…

This week’s WITWIT is more of a WTHHH (What the heck happened here?).

And then it came. After weeks of historic cold, the weather finally broke on March 30. There’s a comic strip that hangs on the wall of our sugarhouse, where a sugarmaker drills a hole in a tree…

Harry Houdini was a great break-out artist: handcuffed, straight-jacketed, chained and submerged in water, he’d always emerge.  Raccoons are famous break-in artists. No chimney flue,…

One irony of ancient forests and wilderness areas – known for their absence of human imprint – is that their names conjure up associations with people. In the Sierras, the Mariposa Grove…

In maple country, it seems like everyone has a favorite syrup grade. Mine is U.S. Grade A dark amber. But soon, I’ll have to figure out how my favorite grade of the past jibes with a new system…

We’ve boiled twice since my last blog post, and both times were in support of pretty minor runs. Our season total is 67 gallons of syrup, which puts us at about 8 percent of a crop. Last year by…

Sent along by Mark Heitzman, who found them on his property in Barre, Vermont.