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Newsletter
January 28, 2011
In This Issue
Editor's Blog
The Outside Story
What In The Woods?
Last Week's Contest Answer
Northern Woodlands News
Quick Links

syrup EDITOR'S BLOG
Proposed Maple Syrup Standards
Dave Mance III

 
 

As a medium-sized maple sugarmaker (our tree farm taps about 2,500 trees), I have mixed feelings about these proposed standards. On the one hand, I'm distrustful of the food safety bureaucracy, as many small farmers are. You need only look at the dairy and meat farming industries - where off the farm sale of raw milk or farmer-processed meat is either intensely regulated or downright illegal - to see how seemingly well intended rules can lead to consolidation that squeezes out the small farmer...


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sheeeeep THE OUTSIDE STORY

Sheep, Externalities, and the Price of Grain

Chuck Wooster

We lost money on sheep this year at our farm. In the grand scheme of things, we're in good company: farmers in New Hampshire and Vermont have been losing money on sheep for going on 180 consecutive years, not counting the bonanza in the early 1860s when the U.S. Army bought a lot of wool at a decent price...

 

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sweet car WHAT IN THE WOODS IS THAT?
Our Biweekly Guessing Game!

Our friend Dan Wing found this old car out in the woods behind our office. OK, antique car buffs, what is it? We're after make and model, and justify your guesses.
 

Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you'll be eligible to win a copy of The Outside Story, a paperback collection of our Outside Story newspaper columns. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner's name, will appear in next week's column. 


View the full image and enter this week's contest

This week's contest deadline is 8:00 AM, Wednesday, February 8, 2011.
apples uppa tree Previous Contest Answer

Congratulations to our winner, Jackie Donnelly! Jackie receives a copy of our book, The Outside Story. We had over 50 correct answers!
 

 

Forester and naturalist Lynn Levine snapped this picture last fall. In all, there were about 25 apples in the crooks of trees at different heights - 10 feet in the air, near the ground, and every height in between. "It looked like an Easter egg hunt," she recalls.

She makes a pretty convincing case that she knows whodunit. Do you?


NW Answer: Red Squirrel. 

 

We asked Lynn how she could be sure it was a red squirrel, and she indicated that each apple had clear teeth marks in it. She initially suspected porcupine, but found no sources that indicated that porcupines cache food. Red squirrels do squirrel away food, though. And the teeth on a red squirrel skull she had at home matched the marks on the apples perfectly.

 

Lynn has a new kids' book out called Snow Secrets - a work of fiction that details the tracking adventures of two six-year-old girls. To learn more about the book, click here.  


  Visit our What In The Woods Is That? contest archive.
 NW Woodpecker logoNORTHERN WOODLANDS NEWS
   

New York State of Mind

 

The New York chapter of the Society of American Foresters is holding their annual meeting in Syracuse this week, and Northern Woodlands' executive director, Walter Medwid, is attending the session.

 

Northern Woodlands is in a New York state of mind because in April we will publish The Place You Call Home: A Guide to Caring for Your Land in New York, an owner's manual for New York landowners. This is the 4th edition in our Place You Call Home series, following versions tailor-made for the Upper Valley, Catskills watershed, and Vermont. You can take a look at these editions online here

 

These magazine-format guides show landowners many important things, including why buffer strips along streams are so important, why their woods and their checkbooks are better off if they use a forester's services, and how to evaluate their own woods as habitat for wildlife.

 

Distribution of the New York edition will be in conjunction with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and Cornell University Cooperative Extension. When more details of the launch are available, we'll report to you.


Seeking Executive Director


BERC, the Biomass Energy Resource Center, is seeking an executive director.  BERC is a non-profit that works to promote community-scale biomass in Montpelier, Vermont. Learn more here.  

We Welcome Your Questions and Comments
Postal Address:
Northern Woodlands
1776 Center Road
P.O. Box 471
Corinth, VT  05039
Toll-Free: (800) 290-5232
Phone: (802) 439-6292
Fax: (802) 439-6296
Email: mail@northernwoodlands.org
General inquiries form

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The mission of the Center for Northern Woodlands Education is to encourage a culture of forest stewardship in the Northeast by producing and distributing media content to increase understanding of and appreciation for the natural wonders, economic productivity, and ecological integrity of the region's forests. Our programs give people the information they need to help build a sustainable future for our region. Through Northern Woodlands magazine, the Northern Woodlands Goes to School program, and special publications, we make a difference in how people care for their land.