Starting Anew
Last week’s storm decimated the trees in our yard, exposing raw tissue where limbs severed. Branches, graced by buds that will never open, lay scattered on the killing snow. Taking in the scene, I...
Category: Ecological Values
Emerald Ash Borer: A Slow-Motion Natural Disaster
Maine communities stand to lose a lot with the arrival of emerald ash borer (EAB), an Asian parasite that attacks white, green and brown ash (Fraxinus spp.) — killing most trees within a few...
Displays of Love and Grief
During a 2016 trip along Greenland’s west coast, Maine photographer Peter Ralston took this photo of disappearing ice. Ralston returned from that trip with what he describes as “a burning desire” to share his photos of...
For the Birds: Gardening for Wildlife
With six decades of gardening experience, Sharon Turner is a resource for many residents of the midcoast who seek to create more wildlife-friendly landscapes. Photo by Marina Schauffler. If you look the right way,...
Buried Treasure: Taking Farm Sustainability to a New Level
“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot,” Leonardo da Vinci is said to have observed roughly five centuries ago. Sadly, that statement still holds, according to geologist...
Making Peace with Insects
Until this year, June was arguably my favorite month – with its luxuriously long days, beach time, succulent strawberries and delectable snap peas. But this June brought trench warfare, forcing me to combat squadrons...
Speaking of Climate
“It’s not climate change – it’s everything change.” – Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist and poet, in a 2015 essay Rapid. Far-reaching. Unprecedented. When international scientists wrote last fall in a U.N. report of the...
Facing a Reckoning
Ironies, like onions, come in layers and can make you cry. As I stared at a graphic showing an outline of Maine symbolically shifting down the East Coast (see bottom figure), I had an...
