What’s for Dinner: Cherry Cobbler Completes the Meal

The slump, the dump, the Betty, the crisp, the crumble, or the cobbler! What’s the difference? These are all versions of a cooked fruit dessert with a crumble, biscuit, or pie crust on top and/or bottom, and baked in the oven or cooked on the stovetop.

Casting About: Caddis Pupae

Avid trout anglers learn not only about the fish but the working of the watershed. Yes, we want to be completely in touch with our rivers. And one aspect of that desire is to study aquatic macro invertebrates. Tucked under rocks, buried in the mud, encased in gravel and sand, they abide on the riverbed, an essential part of the trout’s food chain.

Estuary for Young Readers #18

Saybrook station. The conductor pushed the car door aside and, leaning out of the train, looked up and down the length of the platform for passengers, then called out, “Board!”

Central Watershed Outings: Summit Houses of the Pioneer Valley

Inspired by artists and writers such as Thomas Cole and Timothy Dwight, many tourists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came to the Connecticut River valley to visit the region’s mountain houses atop peaks such as Mount Tom, Mount Holyoke, and Mount Sugarloaf. Visitors enjoyed the panoramic views and amenities such as restaurants, observatories, theaters, concerts, and inclined railroads.

Conte Corner: Let Our Mission Be Our Guide

Major policy changes affecting the irreplaceable network of public lands, which the federal government is charged with protecting unimpaired for future generations, have been implemented by the second Trump administration.

Justin Smith Morrill: Father of the System of Land-Grant Colleges

How did a man who left high school at the age of fifteen have a major impact on the development of some of our nation’s premier institutions of higher education, including the flagship universities of Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts? That would be a person with a core understanding of self and an uncompromising work ethic. That man was Justin Smith Morrill.

The Cormorant Controversy

Anglers who fish Chatfield Hollow State Park in Killingworth, Connecticut, swear that cormorants have figured out when trout stocking is due. They may be on to something.

My Mountain Laurel Pilgrimage

Some folks go on an annual religious pilgrimage. My annual journey is to see mountain laurel which blooms from late May to early June.

Below the Surface: An Ancient Fish, A Modern Mystery

Two species of sturgeon are found in the Connecticut River—the Atlantic and the shortnose. Both are anadromous, at least to a degree, and both are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

On My Mind…

It seemed like such a good idea. Just coat seeds with insecticide so that the plants sprout with the insecticide systemically already in their leaves, ready to repel and kill the pests.

Rewilding in the Watershed

Project partners from three different organizations wander across fields of goldenrod and burnweed under a perfect September sky. From a boardwalk just a few inches above the wetland soils we inspect alders and cattails, wool grass and smartweed.

Gardening for Good: Gardening for a Changing Climate

In summer 2021, my neighbor sent me a text with a picture of an unusual bird wading in the marsh below his deck. You had to take note, as there are just no big pink birds local to Connecticut. Indeed, that bird—a roseate spoonbill—is typically a resident of Florida and tropics further south. Likely sent off course from a storm that blew it up the coast, it is somehow appropriate to elicit that recollection in a conversation about how our climate is changing in New England.