What's Your Nature?

Become a Nature Up North explorer to share your encounters with wild things and wild places in New York's North Country. Post your wildlife sightings, landscape shots, photos from your outings, and even your organization's events!

Wild Eats Episode 4: Nettle Ravioli

By India Harvey on July 25, 2016

Blog: Farmed and Foraged

In most cases it’s wise to avoid contact from anything that stings, yet nettles are a notable exception. Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) are covered in fine hairs called trichomes, which inject histamines into your skin on contact, causing an unpleasant stinging sensation. Fortunately for us, cooking nettles destroys the trichomes, leaving us with a mild-flavored and nutritious leafy green…

By Cailand Sweeting on July 15, 2016

Blog: Just Our Nature

What’s a creative and imaginative way to engage with nature? Build a fairy house! Magic was definitely in the air at our fairy house building workshop this afternoon. Both kids and adults spent time first learning about the basics on how to build their own fairy house before beginning construction. Like any good architect, they first drew up plans and blueprints and considered what materials they…

By India Harvey on July 12, 2016

Blog: Farmed and Foraged

Who needs mining gold when you can have swamp gold? What is swamp gold, you ask? Well, hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen: you’re in for a treat! The North Country may not have a lot of golden ore, but its wetlands are filled with cattails whose pollen transforms local swamps into a virtual goldmine. Cattails (Typha latifolia) are common wetland plants that are surprisingly useful to humans…

By Paul J. Hetzler on July 6, 2016

Blog: Just Our Nature

It’s not unheard of for people to burn vegetables now and then, especially if you’re as easily distracted as I am. I’ll think, the spinach is on low heat, so there’s plenty of time to run out to the garden for chives. Thirty minutes later I’ll be weeding the tomato patch, chiveless, when the smoke alarm indicates the spinach is “done.” Oops. While it sounds absurd to think a vegetable might burn…

By Jacob Malcomb on July 5, 2016

Blog: Just Our Nature

Calling all North Country nature photographers: Nature Up North is hosting a contest for nature photos that will be featured in our 2017 wall calendar. Nature Up North encourages exploration and appreciation of the North Country environment. One way we do this is through the Encounters feature on our website. Encounters enable you to share photos and narratives from your outdoor…

Ripe juneberries can be reddish-pink or purple

By India Harvey on June 30, 2016

Blog: Farmed and Foraged

Amelanchier canadensis, a small shrubby tree native to our region, goes by many names: serviceberry, shadberry, shadbush, and juneberry. But my personal favorite is saskatoon berry. What a wonderful name for a fruit. It perfectly captures the pizzazz of these tiny reddish purple spheres, which are most commonly known as juneberries. This designation highlights its harvesting season, since the…

You'll likely find yourself competing with wildlife for ripe junberries

By Jacob Malcomb on June 30, 2016

Blog: Just Our Nature

Every summer a roundup reminiscent of old western cattle drives occurs at the Wilson Hill Wildlife Management Area in Louisville. But there are several key differences -- rather than riding horses, the “cowboys” paddle canoes and kayaks, and rather than cows, their quarry is Canada geese. And rather than the open range, this roundup occurs in a shallow, expansive, cattail-lined wetland near the…

By Cailand Sweeting on June 22, 2016

Blog: Just Our Nature

Are you stressed out? Are you constantly staring at your computer screen? Do you have work-related tasks that seem to require every ounce of the focus and energy you can muster? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you probably have experienced some sort of stress in your life due to the constant bombardment of directed attention tasks. What is directed attention? Directed…

The three stages of life for a dandelion.

By India Harvey on June 20, 2016

Blog: Farmed and Foraged

Some plants are so common that we forget to appreciate them. We see dandelions everywhere during the summer - their yellow flowers speckle the grass at local parks and poke out between the cracks of village sidewalks. Many people feel some hostility towards the plant, as dandelions stand in the way of a perfectly manicured lawn. Dandelions have a bad reputation, which is ironic because they were…

By Lizz Muller on June 15, 2016

Blog: North Country Voices

Anna Knapp-Peck lives in DeKalb with her husband and two children. Originally from Vermont, she settled in the North Country after moving from Washington County with her family in 2007. They now reside on 90 acres of land that they call Zion Farm, surrounded by ducks, turkeys, dogs, cats, goats, chickens, horses, and Anna’s favorite – oxen. Her animals have been on America's Got Talent, in…