It’s Only Natural—November 2015
Abandoned Charcoal Hearths Affect Today’s Forest Ecology Hans M. Carlson Recently, we got our first dusting of snow. When it’s not enough to cover the ground completely, the darker fallen leaves poke up through the veil of white, and small contours on the ground appear. The contrast highlights slight topographical variations, particularly with the […]
It’s Only Natural—October 2015
Lichen Communities on Bald-Topped Mountains By Hans M. Carlson Until roughly 13,000 years ago, glaciers scoured and sculpted New England’s hills into the ridges, domes and cliffs we find so familiar today. The melting ice deposited soils in some places, but much of the post-glacial landscape was scraped, barren and rocky. Even in the thinnest […]
It’s Only Natural—September 2015
Tree Regeneration in the Working Forest By Hans M. Carlson Recently I asked Jody Bronson, forest manager at Great Mountain Forest, to take me down to the log job we put on last summer. It was a well-planned and well-executed cut, and last year was a good acorn year, so we had hopes that […]
Rebuilding the American Chestnut Tree
Rescuing a Forest Icon By Ruth Melville From Connecticut to Mississippi, along the Appalachian Mountains and into the Ohio Valley, the American chestnut tree, able to grow as big as 130 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, once dominated the forest canopy. Although American chestnuts were almost wiped out by disease by 1950, […]
Through the Garden Gate
“All Gardening is Landscape Painting”—Alexander Pope By Leslie Watkins “The two arts of painting and garden design are closely related,” landscape architect Beatrix Farrand wrote in 1907, “except that the landscape gardener paints with actual color, line, and perspective to make a composition . . . while the painter has but a flat surface […]
It’s Only Natural
Reading the New England Jungle By Hans M. Carlson Jean’s Trail, on the western edge of Great Mountain Forest, makes a loop out through the “Raggy Lot,” on what was once the Dean Farm. The Deans were from the Mount Riga area, probably explaining the name. Although the local term “raggy” means “charcoal maker” (and […]
It’s Only Natural—A Walk Up Stoneman
Merging ecology and history By Hans M. Carlson A black squirrel runs across Canaan Mountain Road as I walk north toward the intersection of Steep Road and toward the Iron Trail up Canaan Mountain. I see this squirrel regularly, just north of the Great Mountain Forest (GMF) offices, and it always surprises me a little. […]
It’s Only Natural
A Harsh Winter’s Effect on Local Wildlife By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo I came home one bone-chilling February night to find a vole half-submerged in a marrowbone that I had given my dog earlier in the day. It was my first nonavian wildlife sighting since December. The average temperature had been less than 15 degrees for […]
It’s Only Natural, March 2015
Looking for Antlers in the Winter Woods By Wiley Wood Deer hunting season ends in November, but a new season starts in February: shed hunting. It doesn’t require a gun or a license from the state. The point is to find antlers in the woods that have been shed recently by white-tail bucks. I learned […]
It’s Only Natural
Holding Ground: A New Approach to Land Conservation in a Changing Climate By Susannah Wood It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the news on climate change: polar ice caps melting at alarming rates, sea level rising, the oceans both acidifying and warming, levels of C02 closing in on 400 ppm, 2014 was the hottest year […]
