By David Brynn In late March of 2025, Vermont Family Forests purchased 132 acres of land—126 of it in the northwest corner of Bristol and 6 acres in Monkton. We are thrilled to own this land and have many ideas for interacting with it in the future. We’ve named it The Commoners’ Return Forest for reasons that I’ll aim to explain …
Game of Logging Chainsaw Training Courses, to learn safe and efficient chainsaw handling.
When Vermont Family Forests offers a workshop, course, or public event, an online ticketing platform is immensely helpful in managing registrations and—if the event involves a fee—processing payments. We recently switched to a ticketing company that is both socially responsible and lower cost than what we’ve been using for the past several years, and we’re excited to tell you about it. Back …
Maintaining your forest property boundaries In bygone days, before property maps and written titles, it was customary in England to “beat the bounds” of the parish every seven years to establish a mutual understanding of property boundaries—a process in which participants literally swatted the property perimeter with sticks. Nowadays, licensed surveyors are tasked with defining property boundaries, and they use …
By Sandra Murphy At Vermont Family Forests, each new year starts with a look back at the previous one, as we pull together our annual report. And each year, certain books rise to the surface as inspirations to the work we do. One literary highlight of 2024 was Birding to Change the World, by Trish O’Kane. Echoing the title of the …
Old logging roads and present-day phosphorus pollution This past summer, Vermont Family Forests oversaw installation of erosion control structures on forest roads at the Seth Hill Waterworks, a parcel of land in Lincoln that’s owned by the Town of Bristol. We paid for this work with grant funds from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s Clean Water Service Provider (CWSP) …
REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE BASIC CHAINSAW USE & SAFETY: Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 8AM – 4PMCOST: $260 per level, plus Eventbrite processing fees LEVEL 1: Thursday, May 1, 2025, 8AM – 4PMCOST: $260 per level, plus Eventbrite processing fees LEVEL 1: Tuesday, May 6, 2025, 8AM – 4PMCOST: $260 per level, plus Eventbrite processing fees LEVEL 2: Thursday, May 8, 2025, 8AM – 4PMCOST: $260 per level, plus Eventbrite …
There are right ways and wrong ways to pick up a snapping turtle. Standing in hip waders in a beaver wetland below the Norton Brook Dam at the Lands of The Watershed Center, herpetologist Jim Andrews demonstrates a right way that keeps both turtle and holder safe. Around him, workshop participants lean in for a close look at the snapper …
It’s Friday afternoon in late August, but the workday is still in full swing for the Vermont Youth Conservation Corp crew at Vermont Family Forests’ Abrahams Knees property in Lincoln. Read all about their forest access-building work for VFF.
Tagging along with mammalogist Chris Gray when he’s monitoring small mammals for the Colby Hill Ecological Project means getting up early. The sun has yet to crest the Green Mountains when we meet at 6am on a dewy, fog-draped August morning at the entrance to Vermont Family Forests’ Guthrie-Bancroft land in Lincoln. Within minutes we’re striding through the rain-soaked field on …
