Site Discussions

This is one of the very best and most interesting articles I’ve ever read in your magazine!

My 60+ year old beech tree has the disease. Most of the leaves are turning brown and falling off. The trunk looks healthy. The arborists suggested cutting it down.  Should I leave it alone? And for how long? It’s a nice tree. Please advise.

Just found the diseased leaves on all of the baby beech trees in the woods on my property. So sad.

I just saw one of these in my driveway this morning.  Thank you for the great information.  Northern Woodlands is a wonderful resource!

Do not know if it the same Phoebe or not but every year since we built our house, 22 years ago, one nests on my front porch. It causes a problem when using the front door. But one of the pair stays on the nest and the other will fly out when I go out the door.  Funny fact, when the phoebe leaves for winter a house wren winters in the nest.

Mariah Choiniere, if I were a young person, I would want to grow up and to be just like you!
So inspiring in every way!

Dear Kendrick,
You nature article was positively dead on with small creatures making big noises!
I live out in rural back woods on dirt roads surrounded by 100 acres. No lights shining at night. The wild ones rule!
Thank you for the great article. I have the Outside Story book and used to read it to my bio science students.

Nice profile. Example of one the increasingly varied paths that leads to an interest in a forestry education these days.

Congratulations to Mariah for her story—very impressive list of work and experience.  It is great to learn of the experiences of young women in all types of forestry and agriculture work.  My daughter went through the agriculture program at Oregon State with one year at a university in New Zealand. After that 2 years in the Peace Corp in Malta working in an agriculture/nematode program related to potatoes, followed by a masters program at Oregon State and finally a PhD at UC Berkley in nematology. This was followed by a now 20 + year career with US Dept of Ag working at Oregon State U.  Based on here experience I would encourage girls and young women to consider these fields of study and work.

Great article!  I’ve always wondered about this. Thank you.

This is so well written, with its interesting words, original expression, and clear explanations!

This was wonderful. Very educational. Loved the pictures to go along. You’re awesome!!

There is a large concentration of beech trees on our property in Westchester County, NY, including very mature trees and many, many seedlings.  Last year, noticed that the seedlings were suffering from some sort of infestation - many had died and the survivors had lost most of their leaves.  This year, the situation has worsened significantly, and the very large trees have empty branches or just a few leaves on their long branches. It is very sad to see such a loss to our woodlands.  Is a treatment in sight?  or will these majestic trees die and have to be cut down?

The straight, smooth branches of small striped maple saplings make excellent marshmallow-toasting sticks—a small but tasty use for this attractive small tree.

I would expect that EAB has bacterial and viral enemies, that living EABs are battling with their immune systems. Take a few hundred EABs and put them in a blender with water, killing the beetles and stopping their immune systems.  The viruses and bacteria that like EAB will reproduce in the slurry. 
Add the slurry to a liquid growth medium, and make a thousand gallons. Spray that from airplanes in areas with EAB and see how it works.

Striped maple stems are hollow and it is fun to make whistles from them. An added attraction for kids on hikes with parents!

Deer browsing on striped maple, or American beech, is indicative of too many deer on the landscape.  Biologists and land owners will use a ‘browse survey’ to prepare harvest prescription.  Yet, a very interesting and informative article.

I grew up eating burdock stems.
We always gather them around Mother’s Day.
I make a delicious breading of ground bread crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic powder and Parmesan cheese. I dip the cleaned stem in an egg bath and then in the bread crumb mix. I fry them in an avocado oil, my mum used olive oil.
Put on a paper towel and drain.
They are simply delish.

I was delighted to find one of these in my garden last July, so I enjoyed learning about them in your article. Thanks.

One of the most intriguing finds of my years in the woods was a cache of two dead porcupines in the ice below a large beaver dam in Franklin County, Vermont.  I watched them for several months after following a series of fisher tracks to the site, as the quills dragging along and partially covering the fisher tracks luring me in.  The porcupines were buried in mushy ice, belly up, and the smell of fisher was intense.  The site was left alone with occassional scent replenishment and tracks.  In late winter i found the site littered with tracks and the skin, head and quills still frozen in but the bones, meat and entrails all gone, clean as a whistle.  Does any one have observations or stories of fisher caches of this nature?