Site Discussions

I’m echo’ing Dale’s comment - any possibility for volunteers to help collect and distribute seeds? Also, any updates on this story? Did any of the seeds make it to saplings?

We paddle the flooded forests in Leicester at Otter Creek and Leicester River!  It’s an east put in and wild fowl is incredible

Ernest is not only hugely intelligent and able. But also an admirable human being. I speak as a long term board director at DLLT.

Thanks Ernest for taking the time to write this descriptive autobiography. I was taking a rare midday break to nibble on my lunch and catch up on work email . . . but when I saw Northern Woodlands newsletter pop in, I focused my attention on opening it and enjoying myself. Sure enough, off I went to Maine to follow you through the decades of your life. Thanks for that!

I started a small outdoor store in NY’s Catskill Mountains in 2005 and, as I approach my 72nd year, I am still enjoying and learning new things each and every day. I’m so glad you do too!  Cheers,
Lisa

Ernest has been a close family friend for decades, and is being very humble in the tale of his exploits in Down East Maine. He has down played the effects that his church has had on the local youth, the firewood program for less fortunate families and his and Ellen’s many hours spent as hospice volunteers.

Not to mention his prowess and love of Brook Trout fishing along with traveling countless miles to support local athletes at the many sports venues across Washington County on many a cold Winter night.

Well done Ernest, enjoy retirement the way you see fit, as I am sure Ellen will only truly understand.

Very nice piece. A life well lived.

This is a nice reminder of the history in our landscapes. Readers can find a free downloadable publication on stonewalls and cellar holes, a product of the Vermont Forest Stewardship Program. It is applicable to upstate New York and other states in New England.

Great article!  It really captured the essence and scope of the forest products industry and how it has evolved over time.  Mr. Hull’s lifetime of work in the sawmill and the forest is a great American success story.  Thank you.

Very nice article.  It gave a good feel for paddling in the flood plains!

Thanks for the simple easy to build bat house plans.

I am a big fan of Liz Thompson’s book, ‘Wetland, Woodland, Wildland: A Guide to the Natural Communities of Vermont’, using it extensively in my work as a landscape gardener. Planting in groups of native plant communities appropriate for a specific site is paramount in efforts to re-wild and revegetate our much-altered Vermont landscape. Learning and studying nature and natural processes directs me in my work. Much of my work involves educating clients on how to reduce their harmful human meddling in natural processes.

Like Liz, as someone of approximately the same generation, I also experienced how old attitudes and the male-dominated world altered my work trajectory. I also can feel the depressing weight of the world in it’s present state. However, I am constantly amazed at how nature can heal itself with just a little help. It’s been encouraging over the years to experience many examples of nature’s latent resilience and talents to restore itself using some specific and careful methods to help. It’s true that in our small efforts of trying to heal the world, we can also heal ourselves.

Here’s a source for optimism: compare the meager UVM course catalog options from the late 1970s when I was enrolled to diverse and numerous options available today in Agriculture, Landscape and Ecology (ALE). There is a huge surge in interest for linking ecological principles to agriculture and landscape fields, and a huge surge in interest for home gardeners to learn better ecological practices. There is a shift happening!

I am learning so much about plants around me from sites like yours. Thank you!

Hi Jeff,
Here in Wisconsin we use a retort pyrolyses system that burns very clean. We make apple wood, oak, hickory, and cherry charcoal. We start it with left over pallet debris and once it goes into full retort it runs on its own. This was a custom design of our own and we make about 100 lbs of finished charcoal and we keep it in clean pickle buckets to keep it dry due to it absorbing moisture. Then we package it in 10lb lined boxes for shipping. It’s a bunch of fun to make. The cleanest is the pyrolyses system, but it can be dangerous due to it’s made in a pressurized container that is making gas that will feed the heating process and requires good maintenance and a good understanding of the process and system. You first cook off the residue moisture which makes steam then it switches to gas as it reaches 600-650 degrees. You will use about 5lbs of pallet wood to get it started and it burns extremely clean. I use all the scrap that comes of my sawmill that drys for a year.

Love your story. Where I live on a hill we are a stones throw from a barn and cellar hole . We know the history of the family that farmed on our property and the cellar holes do indeed tell their own stories. We learned they sold potash, raised sheep, and the family had six children. We have a photo from 1918 showing the family, the family dog and a Boston fern on a table, all outside in front of the house. Boston ferns were the rage back then and garnered enough prestige to be in the photo. The sons were all Paul Bunyans. Desired then to work the hard life, of a farm back then in Vermont. I found a lilac, and a beautiful pink tiny rose bush I researched.Its name-Dorothy Perkins. I have spent 34 years digging around the cellar holes and oh the treasures I’ve found. Locate the outhouse and go to town digging . That’s where the trash went. The house and barn cellar holes are surrounded by six mature, ancient Black locust trees. One planted, so I’m told for each child born there.

I love this story! I once owned property in Dennysville, Maine that came with an old foundation as this article describes, complete with formerly-beloved lilacs and a “dump pile”. Oh the treasures!!! Beyond all the cool old bottles and broken bits, my favorite find was a 1940s toy truck. It was a beautiful rusty old thing with three of its original tires mostly intact. Whatever child had owned this had attached a certain joyful appreciative spirit to it, which passed through to me when I became the owner.

He was a distant cousin of my late dad, Edward M.Mills !

Thanks, Lucy Gross, for the interesting article. I now live in western Canada, but in my youth when I was roaming the woods of Québec, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, I enjoyed many woodland stretches that I will now think of as seepage forests. In Newfoundland these stretches were often thickly carpeted by mosses.

Thanks for taking me back to those roamings!

Mike Rosen

Thank you for your wonderful information. We really and truly appreciate your knowledge and look into the woods with new eyes every time we learn something new.

I loved seeing this article. My husband and I recently moved from Baltimore city after living there for 50+ years so we could be closer to our place in Vermont. Cities need more people like Brandon Radcliffe, defying assumptions that people of color or people living in cities don’t care about the natural environment.

Wonderful story, Meghan. I love visiting the wildflower table whenever I’m at the museum. Your story can help us all appreciate how important these humble blooms are to our scientific knowledge. Pretty to look at…and so much more!