What's Your Nature?
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Just Our Nature Posts
A Winter With Everything
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our Nature
“Make me one with everything.” If you had to guess, you’d probably say that was either a request to a short-order cook at a diner, or else a supplication to the Divine. This winter, I think someone whispered that line in Mother Nature’s ear, because even though it is not yet half over, she has already made us a winter with everything. It’s as if she glanced at her weather playlist and hit…
Moody Weather Tricks Local Species
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureThis winter took a long time to wise up. Snow lovers lamented, but I was among those who enjoyed the break from snow shoveling and firewood hauling during our pseudo-September. However, I noticed some less positive effects of the tropical weather. For one thing, the buds on my currant bushes decided it must be spring and began to open. Coltsfoot, dandelions, and Johnny-jump-ups bloomed. Buds on…
Porcupine Trails
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureWhat fearless animal has an adorable face, plows snow all winter and has a six-million acre park named after it?
One of 29 species worldwide, the North American porcupine is the largest New World species, growing to 36 inches long and weighing as much as 35 pounds. That makes it the second-largest North American rodent (behind the beaver), but still only half the size of an African crested…
Late Season Tick PSA
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureIn northern New York State, autumn temperatures have been between seven and eight degrees above average, allowing us even more time to procrastinate fall chores. This has been welcome to those who have to work outside, and anyone concerned about their heating bill is loving the warm weather too. Obviously, skiers and other winter enthusiasts aren’t happy, but I think the rest of us should get…
Natural Holiday Decorations
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureNot that long ago the winter holiday season started after Thanksgiving, but it seems like every year it inches closer to the middle of the calendar. Now Santa just barges in the day after Halloween, presumably to take advantage of half-price candy, but still it seems a bit rude. I blame the insidious “holiday creep” (not to be confused with the Grinch) on global warming. Or maybe it’s…
Spotted Lanternflies: A New Forest Pest
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureChinese lanterns, bright and cheery, can lend a festive air to an evening out on the patio. As far as I know they are harmless. Chinese spotted lanternflies are also bold and colorful, but they do cause harm, and a lot of it.
Spotted lanternflies were unknown in North America until 2014 when they showed up in Pennsylvania on a shipment of stone from China. Who knew the Keystone State was that…
Multi-Purpose Milkweed
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureAfter the cloud-like flocks of blackbirds have departed, swarming like giant amoebas toward points south, and the broad chevrons of geese have mostly disappeared over the horizon, another momentous fall event begins. Yes, it’s time for one more native species to take to the air—the great milkweed migration is on.
By late summer, milkweed pods are bursting with mature seeds affixed to bundles of…
Fall Migrants
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureWhat can cruise at an altitude of 29,000 feet, is a beloved icon of the great outdoors, and yet can be the bane of lawn lovers? It’s the honking harbinger of advancing autumn and coming cold (and sometimes, bad alliteration), the Canada goose.
The familiar autumn voices of Canada geese overhead can at once evoke the melancholy of a passing summer and the anticipation of a bracing new season of…
Holey Maple Leaves
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureOnly a joker would argue that plant breeders have secretly crossed our beloved sugar maples with Swiss cheese, but given the way this year’s maple leaves are riddled with mysterious holes, it almost seems a plausible explanation. Beginning in August, near-perfect circles of leaf tissue have gone missing from sugar maples, and from other trees to a lesser extent, as if swarms of Hole-Punch Fairies…
Early Fall Color Changes
By Justin Dalaba on
Blog: Just Our Nature
Some of my most vivid childhood memories involve plopping into that pile of red, yellow and brown fallen leaves neatly gathered into a mound by my dad. I remember running off the school bus in the golden afternoon sun to roll around in the yard amidst the unforgettable sound of crunching leaves and smell of fall decay. As carefree kids, we thought little of the hard work the…