There is a blight on my land, and it just killed my favorite chestnut tree. The so-called chestnut blight, introduced a century ago, wiped out 4 billion American chestnut trees and is still a potent exterminator of all the new trees sprouting from the old roots. I had great hope that our 30 [...]
I was cross country skiing last weekend, enjoying a crisp winter afternoon, when I came across a flock of birds picking over a carcass. Rather than gather seeds peacefully from the millions of pine cones in the forest, these creatures chose to battle each other for a few scraps of coyote (or whatever the [...]
A small dent. That’s all that resulted from whacking the wood with a 6 pound maul as hard as I could. Being nearly winter, I’m urgently trying to get all the wood split before the snows come. Most logs yield to the force, splitting into neat chunks ready for stacking. But [...]
The tremendous ice storm last night has put a fine point on this note, since as I write this, 14 inch oak trees are snapping like matchsticks. It sounds like someone is shooting a shotgun outside your window, followed by the crash of branches and ice. It’s pretty exciting except for the fact that the [...]
I have finally found out the great benefit of a cold and rainy August – mushrooms. I was walking through the woods the other day and was treated to a brilliant display of fungus. What was most eye-catching, though, were the incredible colors of the bright red, yellow, and purple orbs scattered about the forest. [...]
It always amazes me how kids can take a product (e.g. building block) expressly designed for a particular purpose and use it very successfully in an entirely unintended fashion (street hockey puck). This approach should readily expand the size of the markets for many kids’ products. Similarly it seems to make sense that [...]