You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his hands, he looks in on me… So wrote Robert Frost in his poem “The Star-splitter.” The aesthetic wonder of this […]
Category: The Outside Story
The Outside Story: Pine Cones: The Complicated Lives of Conifer Seeds
My yard is full of Eastern white pine trees, and every three years or so, it is full of pine cones. This is one of those years. Pine cones have fallen all over the yard, the sidewalk, the driveway. The […]
The Outside Story: The phenomenon of winter light
In mid-winter 1988, I went contra-dancing at the Congregational Church in Lyme, New Hampshire. During intermission, I joined other dancers who stepped out of the overheated hall into a star-studded night alive with shimmering waves of color, from blue […]
American tree sparrows: Hardy winter visitors
Most winters, a few sparrows visit my yard, feeding on the seeds I scatter on the ground near my bird feeder. These particular sparrows have long tails, rusty crowns and eye-lines on their gray heads, and a distinctive dark breast […]
The Outside Story: Thundersnow: A rare type of winter storm
By Colby Galliher It’s deep in winter, and a nor’easter is dumping snow outside. In between the howling winds you hear a boom! Maybe a heap of snow fell from the roof, you think, or a giant icicle crashed from […]
The Outside Story: Six-legged creatures of the winter stream
One winter day, while teaching a winter ecology class, I pulled on waders and rubber gloves, grabbed a catch net, and led my “Minibeasts of the Stream” program, discovering a rich variety of insects in the frigid waters of Kedron […]
The Outside Story: How trees prepare for winter
By Rebecca Perkins Hanissiant Of all life’s synergies, I appreciate most the one between my propensity for domestic procrastination and my love of moving through the outdoors — countless adventures are born of it. During a late November weekend, when […]
The Outside Story: Otters among us
In winter, river otters head upstream into the uplands, seeking areas of fast-moving water that remain open—at least open enough for an otter to slip into a stream in pursuit of fish. You might catch a brief glimpse of […]
The Outside Story: Looking up for the Geminid meteor shower
I’ve always loved the idea of watching the sky for shooting stars. But I’m much more likely to be up to watch the sunrise than I am to stay awake past midnight, when most meteor showers happen. […]
The Outside Story: Canada Yew: A native evergreen
By Susan Shea For thousands of years, people have decorated their homes with evergreen boughs, a symbol of eternal life, during the darkest time of the year — around the winter-solstice and Christmas. In addition to common species […]