On a raw December day in northern Vermont, with a nor’easter bearing down on New England, the kitchen in Sarah Taparauskas’s circa 1850s farmhouse is a warm, inviting place to…

I have been managing woodlots in central Vermont since 1987, and in that time, two major ice storms have hit my area. Those two storms damaged thousands of acres across the region, and many…

Early September is not yet luminous with brilliant foliage, and there’s no reliable tracking snow. Yet for deer hunters and naturalists alike, there’s a palpable excitement in the…

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, service foresters working for the state or for cooperative extension marked a lot of timber sales for landowners. I was one of those foresters in New York, and I…

Sherman Hollow, where I live, was undoubtedly originally made habitable to humans by beavers. The road now cuts through this valley and along the drainage that runs between steep hills. A…

Managing the Legacy Forests at a Birthplace of Conservation At first glance, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont, seems like your typical national…

Each autumn, deciduous leaves transform the northern forest into a cheerful collage of oranges, reds, yellows, purples, and greens. Yet beneath this fleeting canopy grow longer-lasting and…

Plant life is an essential foundation of wildlife habitat. Whether in a northern hardwood forest or an agricultural landscape, plants form the base of the food chain, the structure of the…

"Plants are in the business of making themselves inedible,” says Tom Vogelmann, a plant biologist at the University of Vermont. Being unable to run and hide from predators,…

The Vermont State Fair is an extravaganza of carnival rides, livestock shows, demolition derbies, harness racing, live music, yummy junk food, art exhibits, vegetable and pie competitions,…