All ponds have water in common. It’s their surroundings that tell them apart. The pasture pond is a sun-splashed delight prized for its recreational opportunities and as a landscape accent. The…

Trees are made to sway in the breeze. They need to, really. Trees and wind have been doing this dance for a long time, and the trees seem to have learned their steps. Just watch them: they move a lot…

Timber theft is a crime that takes generations to overcome – generations the victim will not see. Timber is surprisingly easy to steal, and the high value of northeastern hardwoods is all the…

Norm Lake, a Grafton, Vermont, logger, whose work in the woods began during the transition from axes and crosscut saws to chainsaws, died this spring at the age of 89. I had a chance to visit with…

Northern Woodlands magazine has come a long way in the 13 years since we launched its predecessor, Vermont Woodlands. Our first issue was published in June 1994. It was a slim 28 pages, printed in…

Jewelweed has to be one of the wateriest plants in existence. If you doubt it, just hold some of it between yourself and a light source, preferably the sun. Even its thick main stems are so…

Hemlock woolly adelgid, the tiny but mighty scourge of hemlocks from Tennessee to as far north as southern Maine and New Hampshire, may soon face a worthy adversary: University of Vermont researcher…

TITLE: Neutrons as Radio Tags AUTHOR: Geoff Wilson WORDS: 792 You are probably familiar with some of the fascinating observations that biologists have made by putting radio or satellite transmitters…

When you wake up in the morning and take a shower, brush your teeth, and have your morning glass of water, you rarely, if ever, wonder where that water comes from. For two-thirds of the residents in…

The photos are disgusting: arms covered in purple welts and oozing blisters. The stories are also horrifying: there is the New Hampshire woman who needed intravenous antibiotics and cortisone shots…

The hill we live on supports two dairy farms, some beef cattle, and a few horses. A bucolic peacefulness descends as the animals graze upon the green slopes. Though the scene seems tranquil, it…

Overhead, two dozen open burrs still hung from the chestnut’s limbs. The burrs, like the tree’s curled and deeply toothed leaves, had spent the winter on the tree. The nuts they once held…

Now is the time of year for cleaning out the woodstove and spreading the ashes on the garden, a chore that both prepares the stove for summer vacation and sweetens the soil for the coming growing…

In a showdown between a bald eagle and a great horned owl, who would win? A bald eagle has a wingspan that can be nearly seven feet. It can weigh up to 14 pounds. It has piercing yellow eyes and a…

With the welcome arrival of spring, each day brings new birds, many of them from far away. Their appearance - sometimes all the members of a species arrive within a few days - is the result of many…

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land. —Solomon…

In 1848, the bones of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) were uncovered in Mount Holly, Vermont, during excavation for the first railroad tracks across the Green Mountains. While these bones…

With deep snow lingering, now is a good time to perform the following experiment. Look out across a hillside that is a mix of forest and field. Now squint a bit. Which is brighter, the forest or the…

When snow finally arrived this winter, and high winds followed, I knew the trees would be on the move. Not just dancing in the breeze, but spreading into new territory. Many of our native species drop…

There you are, leaning against a big maple in your sugarbush, drill and tap at the ready, when you think, “Wait a minute…is this a red maple or a sugar maple?” While maples in…