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!
Just Our Nature - news, updates and insights
Our 6th Annual Cardboard Sled Race Recap!
By Dan French on
Blog: Just Our NatureThe 6th Annual Cardboard Sled Race, planned originally for Saturday, February 10th, then moved to Saturday, Feb 24th due to weather, fell victim this year to the warm weather of El Niña. What was otherwise a delightfully warm and sunny week leading up to Saturday, melted much of the snow that had dropped the weekend prior. That, coupled with a wind chill in the negatives on Saturday morning,…
Got Biogas?
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureEven if its precise definition isn’t at the tip of your tongue, most everyone gets the drift of what’s meant by the term ‘biogas.’ There is biology involved, and the result is gas. One example might be the funk in the air on the bus carrying the sauerkraut-eating team home after a weekend competition. Another type of biogas is cow belches, and the rotten-egg stink-bubbles that swarm to the…
My Start, My Growth, and My Return to the North Country
By Dan French on
Blog: Just Our NatureAs the new Project Manager for Nature Up North, I’m excited by the many possibilities in front of me. In my first few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to visit students in Norwood as they learn about the difference between deciduous and coniferous trees. I’ve worked with the encounters on our website as we built our 2024 calendar (for sale now!). I’ve met our many St. Lawrence University interns…
Think Snow – Gardens and Forests Need It
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureIn her poem “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves,” Emily Dickinson lauds the sublime beauty of snow – gossamer flakes that garnish a forest, wispy grains that infiltrate nooks and crannies, and wind-sculpted rings of snow around fence posts. Given that the poet lived in a time before cars and stayed in her bedroom for 20 years, she never had to shovel snow, trudge through it, or drive in it. One is less…
A Brief History of Azure
By Patrick Chase on
Blog: On the TrailIn the Northern edge of the Adirondack park, where the towering heights of the High Peaks give way to smaller mountains and rolling hills, sits one such feature. 2,518 feet tall and one mile to the top, it presents an easy hike that anyone can do. And indeed, Azure Mountain is many people's first hike given its proximity to universities in Canton and Potsdam. Typically, in the first few weeks…
Groundhog Day, Again?
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureAgain?
I watched the 1993 film Groundhog Day featuring Bill Murray at least a dozen times. Or maybe it just felt that way. Just as February 2 was on a nonstop loop in the film, this year’s iteration of Groundhog Day is likely to feel roughly the same as all the previous ones. I think it’s a good metaphor for this time of year, as we stumble out each morning in the semi-dark to defrost the car,…
Food Webs and Tapestries - Connecting the Dots
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureBack in primary school in the ‘70s, we learned about nature’s “food chain.” In this linear model, which I assume was devised by surveyors who normally lay out rail lines and utility corridors, a tiny creature, let’s say a minnow, gets eaten by a bigger fish, and so on until the biggest fish of all eventually dies and its rotting carcass is maybe nibbled on by vengeful small fish.
After a while,…
Time For Torpor!
By Liz Anderson on
Blog: Just Our NatureIt’s well known that bears go into hibernation for the winter, eating lots of food during the fall, sleeping in their dens through the winter, then reemerging hungry in the spring. However, the process is actually not that simple. Bears don’t even actually hibernate! Instead, they enter a state called torpor.
Torpor is a general term for a state of inactivity during which animals enter a…
Give the Gift of Being Green this Holiday Season
By McKenna Allardi on
Blog: Just Our NatureThe holiday season is a time to give thanks, rejoice with the company of family, and share gifts with friends. While we create memories to last a lifetime with loved ones, we also create waste that can last just as long in landfills. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), American households increase the total waste they produce in a year from 4 million tons to 5 million…
Super Modeling
By Paul J. Hetzler on
Blog: Just Our NatureWeather modeling has become quite a big deal in recent decades, with meteorologists falling all over themselves to report what the latest models say. It sounds like a fun job, and I’m trying to find out how to apply to become a weather modeler. If it involves appearing in a swimsuit, though, forget it.
I love it when a radio announcer chirps “clear and sunny” during a storm because they read the…
