The drumming of a grouse in the distance. A trailside tree peppered with rings of yellow bellied sapsucker pecking holes. The cry, like a squeaky wheel, of a black and white warbler as it flitted by. The forest at Pine Tree Camp in Rome was filled with bird trills last Saturday during the Women and Our Woods Outdoor Workshop.
Read MoreIt would be quiet if it weren’t for the ... almost non-stop “wuk wuk wuk” from three pileated woodpeckers. Their volume matches their large bodies. “ We have a resident pair as well as a third bird that’s spending the winter. Pileated woodpeckers have a 150- to 200-acre territory, so owners of smaller woodlots won’t have many pairs. It isn’t unusual to have more than one pair in winter, but come spring the visitors will be driven away if they don’t leave voluntarily.
Read MoreOnce each year, approximately 30 30-yard dumpsters are filled to the brim with discarded mattresses, old tires, car parts, and other items dumped on the land of woodlot owners. This enormous clean-up effort, undertaken by a host of volunteers during IF&W and DACF’s Annual Cleanup Day, only touches upon a fraction of the waste that is illegally dumped.
Read MoreThirty-three invasive, and likely or potentially invasive, plants have been banned from sale in Maine in a ruling that went into effect on January 14, 2017. Prohibition of sales will begin on January 1, 2018. Three of those plants have never been nursery stock, but rather, "horticultural hitchhikers."
Read MoreTom Doak, the executive director of Maine Woodland Owners, was a guest speaker this week on Maine Calling, a Maine Public Radio program. The topic was "Maine's Big Game Wildlife Plan." The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is currently working on rewriting the plan. To listen to a recording of the program, click here.
Read MoreMaine Woodland Owners has compiled a list of both portable and stationary sawmills in the state of Maine, modeled after the list that had been produced by The Maine Forest Service. This updated list of sawmills provides information about services and products, locations, and contact information. To see the list, click here.
Read MoreTom Doak of Maine Woodland Owners has done many presentations on his list of “The Ten Biggest Mistakes Woodland Owners Make.” Here is a new list to think about: “The Ten Biggest Mistakes Woodland Owners Make When Having a Harvest.” The two lists overlap some. I’ll share the story of one of those calls I don’t like to get, as a reminder of certain things to think about when planning to have your woodlot harvested. This is a true story, though without some of the identifying details.
Read MoreHibernation is underway in our woodlots. We can let the dogs out in the evening without worrying about them bumping into raccoons, skunks, porcupines and bears. Or can we?
Read MoreMaine Woodland Owners recently donated a full truckload of firewood to the Cumberland Wood Bank, with the 10 cords of wood coming from a harvest on a Cumberland woodlot owned by Maine Woodland Owners.
Read MoreA revitalized Forest Inventory Growth (FIG) website will help connect Maine students to the forests that now occupy 90% of the state’s land area.
Read MorePellet plants designed for small landowners are on the drawing board, and, in one case, ready to start up, as Maine wood markets adjust to the dearth in demand for softwood pulp produced by the closure of several paper mills.
Read MoreThe abundant red-orange fruits of autumn olive make it easy to spot this time of year. A single shrub can produce over 50,000 seeds.
Read MoreOnce again this year, a lot of white pine needles are turning brown and dropping off in large numbers. The cause is . . .
Read MoreShrubby honeysuckles are not only invasive, but large enough to take over a forest understory. Lonicera morrowii, L. tatarica, L. x bella)are deciduous shrubs of Northeastern woods, sometimes found around old cellar holes.
Read MoreAs the emerald ash borer (EAB) approaches the state, the Maine Forest Service (MFS) is preparing for likely quarantines, while foresters are hearing from and advising their clients about what the future may hold.
Read MoreThe 127th Legislature adjourned on April 29, and is unlikely to return until a new Legislature is seated in December. Here are highlights some of bills affecting woodland owners:
Read Moreby Lloyd C. Irland
(This is the seventh article in a series by Lloyd C. Irland, originally published in the May issue of Maine Woodlands).
Most careful readers of Maine’s forest history know that the masts for the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” came from the Maine woods. Several individuals prominent in her career were also from Maine. Constitution is the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat; she now rests in drydock at Charlestown for a restoration, due to be completed in 2017. Here, briefly, is “the rest of the story”.
Read Moreby Llyod Irland
(This is the sixth article in a series by Lloyd C. Irland, originally published in the April issue of Maine Woodlands).
Reports by explorers Champlain, Weymouth, and Captain John Smith burst with superlatives describing the size of the trees they found on New England’s shores. They note their significance to the Navy’s needs, and the disadvantages should somebody else’s empire appropriate them. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Lords of the Admiralty were being squeezed by their Baltic timber suppliers.
Read Moreby Lloyd C. Irland
(this is the fifth article in a series by Lloyd C. Irland, orginally published in the February 2016 issue of Maine Woodlands).
Our history books talk of periodic peasant revolts that shaped history, toppling dynasties, exacting concessions, or, more often, ending in bloody suppressions and changing nothing. Grievances over the forests played a role in many of them. We’ve seen the complex evolution of common rights in medieval Europe’s forests. These rights became increasingly unworkable and even dysfunctional in times of prosperity, widening trade, urbanization, and increasing population. About the year 1000 . . .
Read Moreby Lloyd C. Irland
(This is the fourth in a series of articles by Lloyd C. Irland, and was initially published in the December issue of Maine Woodlands).
So far this series has noted the obsession of medieval lords with the deer, boar, and game birds of the forest. We’ve paid less attention to how the common folk of the villages used the forest for food. I was tempted to call this, “Forest and Kitchen,” but then realized the people we speak of had no kitchens.
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