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Mill Prices

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…

At Work with Timber Framer Dave Bowman

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…

Winterberry, Ilex verticillata

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…

Turkey Tail Fungus, Trametes versicolor

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…

The Wood in Windsor Chairs

“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,…

Hold that Embryo

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…

Sugaring with Vacuum Pumps

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…

Headwater Logging Makes Food for Trout

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…

Life and Death

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…

The Long View

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…

From the Center

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…

Seeing the Forest for the Birds

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…

Eat This Plant (Please!)

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…

Heavy Metal Blues

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…

Going Underground

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…

Hey Fella’ – This is My Pool!

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…

Trees Stem Flood Risk

You don’t have to peer too far into the pages of history to find accounts of severe flooding in Vermont and New Hampshire. The Great Flood of 1927 tops Vermont’s all-time list while the…

How Insects Hunker Down for Winter

Imagine a day in late autumn. The landscape is painted in a palette of grays and browns. You’ve watched the geese fly south. You know that bears, bats, and woodchucks will soon hibernate. But…

Extra Calcium Boosts Maple Health

In much of New Hampshire and Vermont, our beloved maples are showing signs of distress. Sure, the reds and oranges for which our forests are famous are now popping out of autumn hillsides. Everything…

Something Afoot in the Woods

A rainy day for a snail is equivalent to a beautiful day at the beach for us, which might just explain why our moisture-loving land snails were out and about in greater numbers this summer. Still,…