Magazine Series

In the late 1990s, when my wife and I moved to New England from the sparse desert and jagged peaks of the Southwest, it took some time to adjust to the dense, green landscape of northern…

Ferns have been around for a mind-boggling 360 million years. That’s more than twice the time that dinosaurs reigned, and more than 1,800 times longer than modern humans have been…

Since 2002, when the first emerald ash borers (EAB) were identified in Michigan and Ontario, the glistening green beetles have spread rapidly, enjoying a mostly uncontested feast. The numbers…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

As our forests awaken from a long winter, some plants green-up sooner than others. While many of our native trees and plants remain dormant, the young leaves of woody non-native invasive…