Are we in the clear? Is it going to frost again? I sure hope it is not going to dip below the 32-degree mark again. With the deep freeze a couple of weeks ago, and low thirties again last week, I’ve had about enough cold weather. As I mentioned several weeks ago, we still wait to plant most …

I’m a sucker for a good looking flower. Back when I was first developing my flower beds I would go to a plant nursery and grab everything and anything that was in bloom and looking great. And I believe in buying multiples: not one plant, but three or five! Needless to say, I was in trouble w…

The lilacs at the farm are in full glory this week, as they always seem to be on Memorial Day weekend. Chores on the farm are slowly but surely being completed. The raspberry patch is completely pruned, and the rows “strung” with supports to keep the fruit off the ground when the picking is …

The pavement was hard.

Before the acceptance of the organic evolution of species, Europeans generally assumed they would find all over the world the same species they already knew. During the Age of Exploration (16th and 17th centuries) this assumption began to be sorely tested. By the mid 18th century Carolus Lin…

This is the time of year when my yard feels bursting with life, as the neighborhood welcomes eastern phoebes, ruby-throated hummingbirds, and broad-winged hawks back from their long migrations. At the Center for Wild Bird Rehabilitation at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, where I wo…

We’ve all heard the idiom, “The early bird gets the worm.” When it comes to invasive jumping worms, unfortunately, there are more than enough to go around. These invasive worms can consume excessive amounts of organic matter and leaf litter in a garden or forest, to the point that it becomes…

Editor and Publisher Thomas J Lasier commented in this now 150 year-old edition: ‘The constant reader of an American daily newspaper must be appalled to find how much crime is recorded as transpiring during each twenty-four hours. From some portion of the land comes a horrifying story of a m…

Part 3: Their They’re There is a Method to this Madness

Although there are many old sayings like, “Plant your potatoes when the oak leaves are the size of a mouse’s ear”, I would rather depend on soil temperature and calendar dates. Besides, who really knows the size of a mouse’s ear?

I took a photo out the front window of our home Thursday morning. The sun was starting to poke over the mountains and light up the valley. The lilacs were blooming. I could see a couple of turkeys poking around beside the lilacs on the lawn that had dandelion blooms gone by with their little…

While planting the vegetable garden last May, I heard a repeated bird song emanating from the adjacent raspberry patch: “Pleased, pleased, pleased to MEETCHA.” Finally, the small songster perched near the tip of a raspberry cane, its tail cocked. The bird’s yellow crown, black mask, olive ba…

Rose-breasted grosbeaks (Pheucticus ludovicianus) are not particularly uncommon, but I don’t seem to encounter them very often. My first recollection of a meeting took place about 20 years ago on the Backbone Ridge Trail in the Finger Lakes National Forest in Hector, N.Y. The forest there is…

Part 2: It was a dark and stormy night…

Part One — So You Wanna Be a Writer

Seat backs up, tray tables in locked position.

Some of the local decreases in bird numbers and diversity I have observed can be attributed to local changes. But it is also a global phenomenon, most recently evaluated in a 2019 article in Science magazine, written by a team led by Ken Rosenburg of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Th…

Even if you planted your peas and spinach in April, you will not be eating them anytime soon. Despite days of full sun and occasional days of high temperatures, spring in New England is often cold and rainy, too. Our vegetable gardens putter along, but few things are ready to eat until June …

At a local farm supply store, lots of little chicks were peeping away, waiting for new owners to pick them up and take them to their farms or backyard chicken coops. The skies around the farm have been filled with bird songs as breeding season is upon us. Tom turkeys have been strutting arou…

CLAREMONT, NH May 9, 2023--There’s an intriguing new enterprise in town. It’s the CrowBar Hardware Store located at 38 Opera House Square in downtown Claremont. Don’t let the name fool you.

The rainbow flags, the parades and confetti, this time of year makes you want to celebrate Pride Month in any way you can. So why not grab one (or all!) of these great books about LGBTQ history and life?

It’s awfully dark at 3 a.m., but there you were, wide awake.

This morning I heard the see-see-see sound that I associate with kinglets, followed by the bright, tumbling notes that I associated with the ruby-crowned species. I think it is my first group of “passing through” migrants this spring. Golden-crowned kinglets are with us all summer, but the r…

Hear ye, hear ye! The queens have emerged! We’re talking about bumble bees (genus Bombus). For several weeks each spring, any bumble bee you see is a queen – and very hard at work. She must construct her kingdom.

Farming is not boring. Every day is an adventure. I was covering the cashier post at our store the other day at around noon. I was chatting with a fellow farm owner from the Lakes Region who was asking advice about how to set up a small farmstand to sell her handmade pottery and seasonal far…