Site Discussions

Excellent article!  I like to read what is happening that is positive on the international forestry front.

What a cool article!  I’ve lived around maples most of my life and would never have guessed the seeds were edible.

That’s a nice explanation between an axe and maul. Many don’t even know the type of tool they’re using when they cut wood and just assume it’s an axe.

We called them Polly Noses—we’d take the green ones, split the sticky end where the seed is and then stick them on the ends of our noses. Good times. Never knew we might have eaten them!

A) “We swam in pounding surf – the kind that knocks you around and humbles you”

You must be a hardy specimen to swim in the Atlantic at this time of year!

B) “Seabirds – common terns, I guess”

Likelier to be herring gulls and their brethren, though perhaps where you were there’s a goodly population of terns. Sea gulls are ubiquitous; terns less common.

I can’t wait to try it!

I’ve a problem complicated by another problem.

1. I’ve 2 Spruce with trunk diameters of about 14+ inches. One was blown into, and prevented from falling by, the second such that one tree which is not cut is fully leaning into the second engaging at the tops at about 35% of the tops. The leaning tree is somewhat unrooted but not too badly.

2. The direction it/they really have to fall involves a banking of about 10’ in height about 15’ from their bases.

My concern is that if I cut the leaner ... it will not fall but more heavily lean into the other and be even more of a problem. If I cut the non-leaner I am concerned that the tension created by the leaner will cause a very erratic response in terms of when and how it falls. If either are cut, when they hit that banking they may easily kick back and there’s not a whole lot of places that would be safe.

Any ideas?

I just found my oak truck covered with head-down, dead gypsy moth caterpillars. 6/26/15. Thank you for the informative article. I will let the spores continue!

Hey there - in response to your question, we contacted a tree expert who helped to fact check this article. He wasn’t able to confirm that Norway maple seeds are edible. So, out of an abundance of caution, best to stick with native species.

Is Norway Maple, being non-native, inedible?

I don’t know a lot about birds, but I found a lovely straw cup shaped nest in a thorny bush 4 or 5 feet up. It had 5 blue speckled/mottled eggs in it. I was pruning the bush back, and I got to one or two feet from the nest before I saw it. A bird nearby had been squawking away, and stopped as soon as I left. Am I a home wrecker? Will the mama bird go back?

I have a wild grape growing on my property. The main stem is as big as my upper arm, and it grows huge quantities of vines every season. It also produces, by mid-May, hundreds and hundreds of clusters of tiny green grapes. Unfortunately, by Mid-June, they have shriveled up and died, tiny brown clusters still hanging attached to the vines. Is there anything I can do to tend/cultivate the vines to get some of these grapes to mature?

I planted a locus tree this past November. It is now mid June and still has not leafed out. When I cut off a bud, you can see green inside. Is there still hope for my tree? Can I do anything to help the situation? Thank you so much.

My wife and I just acquired a farmhouse and 6 acres in Delaware county, just NE of Franklin county in Ohio. On this property is what I believe to be one of the oldest and largest butternut trees in the world.  At the base, the trees circumference is more than 20 feet! This tree looks like it has been standing since the Revolutionary War.  Trying to preserve this tree.  It is producing some nuts currently.

I found the first one this week. I have never seen this beetle before. I have a cherry orchard all around my house but also 60 year old fir trees. I am wondering what to do to kill the beetle but not harm my orchard. Also, if the trees are close to your house do you need to treat it, especially the crawl-space? Please advise! Thanks.

This illustrator is just awesome!! Absolutely beautiful drawings, an amazing talent!! Look forward to more by this young artist!!

I’ve been a woodworker for more than 40 years and have always worked with air-dried lumber (mine has been air-dried in an unheated garage for at least a year). My opinion is that it’s a waste to dry lumber to a moisture content lower than the level where it will stabilize in use. Drier lumber will absorb moisture from the air and will reach a higher moisture content than it had when it came out of the kiln.

You can demonstrate that for yourself—take a piece just out of a kiln weigh it and then let it set around for a couple of months (especially in the humid summer) and weigh it again. Use the same scale and test it both times by using something that can’t change weight—a large hunk of steel or a rock that won’t absorb moisture.

Thanks, Ed!

Hi Naomi, yes indeed, well written, very informative text on an eerie subject, natural resource extraction on behalf of a consumer addict western human society which will find reasons to justify just about anything.

Although these needs to consume are not based on any real thing, they have real bearing on the ecology of this more and more stripped bare planet of ours, yet we still have no other planet to go to when we are done with this one. There is a tomorrow at any rate, but instead of sleeping in a comfortable cozy bed, we might have to do with sleeping on some hard and rough floor. Wake up everyone, just do things as if you wanted a good tomorrow…

Hi Melisa,

Yes, and yes.