Site Discussions

Hi Jay,
I am interested in your story about the cougar(s). I am doing an independent study of alleged sightings of which many are from your general area. Please email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) so I can get additional info for my database.
I saw a cougar cub in Belvidere, Vt in April 2005 and have been interested in them ever since. 
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Teri

Is there something that we can do to help the bats? Is building bat houses a way? I fear that without bats, we will have a bug infestation.
            Thank You
            Ford Geno

I’ve been monitoring the arrival of birds and blooms in my yard, along with general weather trends, for 12 years. And while, on one hand, spring this year manifested earlier than normal by about two weeks, on the other hand the birds and blooms always arrive with incredible consistency. This year the earlybirds followed the early spring, and the laterbirds arrived right on time.

According to my notes, migrant birds and perennial flowers/shrubs do their thing reliably within a two-week window—sometimes within a two-day window—every year. This is as true when it’s 80 degrees in April as it is when we still have a foot of snow on the ground in May.

What seems to matter most is temperature and wetness during pollination period. That can ruin the year’s mast crop, berry crop, and vegetable crop, with repercussions through subsequent seasons.

I am always dismayed during reportage of tragedies how infrequently anyone mentions their effect on flora and fauna. Focus is always about people and money.

Thanks for the info - great.

After the mushrooms have been picked, how do we propagate the next set of logs? Do we just cut the mycelium and put it in the new logs?

I have enjoyed this woman’s work ever since I saw “Pole Reflection”, and others, at the Portland Museum of Art, a few years back. Her ability to capture living water at near-calm conditions, and just that, “Ah…”, that we feel as Mainers, looking around our own state here, is evidence of a real gift.

More than all other artists, I often think of Sarah Knock when I see real-life landscapes—real-life images remind me of her work.

I am very sad to learn about this. Is there any good news about the northern forest these days?

Paddling is another sport where wood properties matter, both in the paddles and the boats. Here, too, composites are making inroads on tradition.

More about earthworms in the forest

Those are beautiful photographs.  Thanks for sharing them.

If I’m not mistaken, the growth of bat-quality ash has been compromised by the emerald ash borer, as well, providing maple another opportunity to gain a foothold in the marketplace.  The future of baseball bats may lie in composites, as long as bat manufacturers can provide the same aesthetic as solid wood bats.

just beginning to actively grow my own shiitake, I have a successful, robust garlic farm, and am excited to begin this new endeavor, wish me luck

I have been involved with invasive control on my property through the WHIP program. It drives me crazy to go to any of the local nurseries and find them selling some of the things I have been breaking my back trying to get rid of! Until invasive species are proibited from sale in the state, I don’t see us making any progress.

Would you know of any sources for black birch (Betula lenta) bark?
I’m an essential oil distiller, looking for raw material.
Thanks

A local nature center recently took up the task of trying to eradicate the Autumn Olive that had overrun the landscape there so it could be restored to its natural environment.  They did an impressive job, cutting most of it out, but are left with unsightly stumps everywhere.  After learning about their project I identified many Autumn Olive plants on my property and new ones growing as well.  I am planning to try and rid myself of them if at all possible.  Any advise on how to proced would be great.

Autumn olive is an excellent wild edible.  I do not discourage it on my property—I harvest it.  I use the berries to make an excellent jelly.  Friends of mine use them to make delicious fruit leather, sauces, and juices.  They are rich in the phytochemical lycopene, which may help prevent cancer.

My chickens love the berries.  The berry-laden branches that I throw into the chicken yard cause a veritable feeding frenzy.  The chickens enjoy them from late summer, when they are just beginning to turn red, until they are gone in November.  This is a long season of a wild and nutritious treat for them.

After the leaves fall, my rabbits love the twigs and bark.  I harvest autumn olive branches for them all winter long.  They like them almost as much as they like apple twigs.

Maybe someday someone will breed autumn olive to create a less aggressive bush that produces larger, sweeter berries, to appeal to the consumer.  Will that be better?  I’m not so sure.  I figure it’s fine to just harvest them from the wild.  Yes, the plant has changed the habitat, perhaps for the worse, but it’s probably better than a chemically maintained monoculture, which is where most of our food comes from.  The more autumn olive I eat, the less I eat from those monocultures.  It’s local, too!

One can think of autumn olive as invasive, but one could also think of it as a terrific food plant that requires no chemical assistance to bear well.

Tree roots grow, and many times pipes are made of clay.  Strong growing roots easily permeate clay.  The roots will not just enter that one spot; they have the potential to be surrounding the pipe.  One solution is to replace the outdated materials (disintegrating clay) of yesterday with schedule #17 pipe.  The roots growing back in two weeks is no different than toilet paper clogging a drain in two weeks time.  Both are barriers, and a stronger barrier is the solution.

Growing up on Cape Cod, pitch pine will always be a favorite species. On the Outer Cape (where soil is literally nonexistent), the tree still dominates, forming vast barrens of gnarled, stubby trees underscored by beds of needles and tufts of wispy grass. The smell of these forests is salty and unmistakable, and primal. Alas! These beautiful forests have reverted to sickly looking mixtures of white and scarlet oak, red maple, and nonnatives over much of the rest of the Cape. Pitch pine is a tree that’s not often paid attention to, but I think it’s beautiful in its own hunched, forlorn sort of way. Thanks.

I’m a native Cape Codder and can offer some perspective on what an area can come to look like after nonnatives have had centuries to settle in. On my parents’ 4 and 1/2 acre plot I’ve noted the following: ailanthus, common privet, 2 types of barberry, vine and bush honeysuckles, buckthorn, multiflora and rugosa rose, oriental bittersweet, Norway and sycamore (pseudoplanatus) maples, garlic mustard, wineberry, knotweed, butterfly bush, burning bush, phragmites, wisteria, and Russian (but not autumn) olive. Fraxinus Excelsior (European ash) is also becoming surprisingly aggressive. Now it appears that some of the more aggressive nonnatives (bittersweet and multiflora rose in particular) are actually pushing out the other invasives.

Anyone who wishes to see what New England will look like after another hundred years of inaction on this issue should take a look at the Cape. The open land here (what remains) is fairly devoid of ecological or economic function. Thanks for bringing up the issue. It’s more important (dare I say dire?) than most people think.

Oh, and I forgot about porcelainberry. It resembles grape vine, to which it is related. Beware!

Our tree farm’s major invasives are buckthorn, multiflora, Japanese barberry, and autumn olive. We have a lovely colony of fringed gentian that pops their beautiful blue flowers up in late September and bloom undaunted through a frost or two. Into this treasured area crept autumn olive. I didn’t notice it until they got knee high. I mowed them the first couple of years after the gentians went to sleep for the winter. However, the olives came back stronger. Thus, I brought in the backhoe and dug each one up and burned them the following spring. They’re gone from that spot, but lurk elsewhere on the property. I’m merely corraling my invasives, but I think I’m having some affect.