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Why live in New Hampshire?
About 50 years ago, just after finishing graduate school in Ohio, I made the decision to decline some good job offers and move back to New Hampshire. Well, moving back might be a bit of an overstatement, as my life in New Hampshire up until age 24 consisted of summers as a kid on a […]
What’s killing the fish?
Everything goes downstream. As we’ve learned from a host of environmental accidents over the decades, when a waste product, a chemical, a pesticide, a fuel, or some other substance is dumped, spilled, or spread on the land, it will ultimately end up in the water and flow downstream. Often the effect in the stream is […]
Wetlands in New Hampshire after the Supreme Court ruling
In late May, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case brought by landowners in Idaho in which the court dramatically changed a portion of the purview of the 1972 Clean Water Act. The “Sackett Case” challenged the authority of the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers (which jointly administer the part of […]
A year without peaches
This spring has seen a series of news stories about the damage and loss of commercial peach crops. The culprit here in New England was an extreme cold snap on Feb. 4, when the temperature in Concord hit minus 15 degrees, and minus 20 at my farm in Weare. At that temperature the flower buds […]
Is wood in streams always good?
In the face of long-term declines in the wild populations of our state fish, the Eastern brook trout, one of the actions being taken across the state and region is putting wood into streams. For many decades, it was assumed that getting wood out of streams was important to protect water quality, bridges, and river […]
Forests are much more than carbon banks
New Hampshire is blessed with forests. More than 80 percent of our landscape is covered with forest – some young, some middle aged, and a small amount very old. All but the very old forests have not always been forests but rather farm fields and pasture created by our European ancestors who claimed the land […]
The natural world is not a safe place
Most people likely believe the natural world they live in is a safe place. Certainly, it’s a less dangerous place for humans than it was thousands of years ago when predators, diseases, infant mortality, and natural disasters meant average human life spans were measured in a just a few decades. Today in developed nations we […]
A tribute to John Harrigan, a legend of the New Hampshire North Country
This story was updated on Jan. 10 at 2:45 p.m. Anyone who is familiar with the North Country of New Hampshire knows that John Harrigan, the former editor of the News & Sentinel in Colebrook and other well-known publications, has passed away. He died in December after a diagnosis of advanced cancer in November. I […]
The Christmas tree dilemma
Every year about this time articles appear in various places that try to answer some version of the Christmas tree question: “Which is the better choice, real of artificial?” As a New Hampshire Christmas tree grower for the past 40 years, I know I’m biased and you can easily predict my answer to the question. […]
Invaders coming soon to a forest near you
Forests define New Hampshire’s landscape. At more than 80 percent forested, our state is the second most forest covered state in the union, just after Maine. It hasn’t always been that way, as historians will remind us. When European settlers arrived, they found a forest that they assumed was primeval, or untouched. It was in […]