What's Your Nature?
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Just Our Nature Posts
Welcoming Our Summer Interns
By Emlyn Crocker on
Blog: Just Our NatureDays are getting longer, butterflies and dragonflies are out, and it's swimming weather by North Country standards - summer is here! At the start of June we welcomed our three summer interns Alyssa LaCoy, Maggie Jensen, and Jess LaMay to the team here at Nature Up North. They'll be with us through early August, and are looking forward to spending their summer visiting farmer's…
What's Good for Your Lawn
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureThe Memorial Day long weekend is often a time to put in the garden, spruce up the yard, and of course, mow the lawn. After the snow from our prolonged winter melted away, many homeowners were disappointed at the condition of their lawn. Areas of dead grass are sometimes, but by no means always, due to heavy feeding by last fall’s grub crop. Grubs, of course, are beetle babies. Not like Ringo…
Best Buds: How Spring Plants Survived Winter
By Ella Gurney on
Blog: Just Our NatureWhile our springtime in the North Country has been a bit more unpredictable than usual, there’s still the usual spring trend: warmer weather and sunny skies! We’re not the only ones starting to venture out- animals are waking up from hibernation, and we’re starting to see signs of new growth in all our favorite flowers.
But how are flowers still here? I mean, it gets cold out there in the winter…
Spring has Sprung: Waking Up In The North Country
By Ella Gurney on
Blog: Just Our NatureIt’s spring in the North Country! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the animals… are waking up!
When I think about hibernation, an image of a bear curled up in a cave comes into my mind. The bear is cozy and warm, and when spring finally comes outside, he opens his eyes, yawns, stands up to stretch, and then walks outside like he’s waking up from a long nap. I imagine that all the…
Trap Trees
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureWhen I hear the phrase “trap tree,” an image of Charlie Brown’s kite-eating tree in the Peanuts comic strip comes immediately to mind. But trap trees, or sentinel trees, are meant to nab a much smaller airborne object, the emerald ash borer (EAB).
The idea is to make certain ash trees more attractive to EAB, to serve both as a monitoring tool and as a means of slowing the rate of ash death. Early…
Invasive Species Awareness Week
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureIn Grade 3, a brilliant joke made the rounds. We’d hold up a sheet of blank white paper and announce it was a polar bear in a snowstorm. Genius is relative for kids. But the first time I drove into a whiteout made me realize how accurate that “art” project was. Anything can hide behind a veneer of snow.
This leads me to ask why February 26 – March 3 was chosen as “National Invasive Species…
2018 Canton Winter Olympics: Recap
By Emlyn Crocker on
Blog: Just Our NatureDo you love getting outside in the winter? If so, you might just have what it takes to be a North Country Olympian! As winter enthusiasts all around the world prepared to kick off the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Korea, Nature Up North and the Canton Recreation Department teamed up to challenge North Country residents with a local challenge... the first annual Canton Winter…
Measuring Science
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureThe good news is that Imperial Forces are losing the battle for planetary dominance. The bad news is that we still play for their team. The British Imperial System of measurement, born in 1824 to help streamline a host of odd units inherited from various cultures, was at the time an improvement. But in 1965, the UK adopted the decimal-based metric system, despite the fact it was invented by the…
Not in Tents, Just Intense
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureWinter is not a season when many people think about tents, except maybe to be glad they do not live in one. I do have some friends who love winter camping, and the fact they have never extended an invitation is evidence of how much they value our friendship.
Oddly enough, winter is a crucial time to look for signs of forest-tent caterpillars (FTC). In spite of their name, FTC do not weave a…
Name-Calling
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureEncouraging people to make friends with wild plants can be a challenge. Sometimes there are genuine concerns. Nettles, as an example, make an early-spring cooked green par excellence, even though its fresh leaves and stems have stinging hairs that can cause an uncomfortable, if temporary, rash if care is not taken when harvesting it.
Other times, it is a matter of perception. Critical to the…