VFF’s Latest HCC Course Explores Vermont’s Reptiles

Several people look at a "snake motel," which is a stack of pine slabs, laid in an open lattice pattern and covered with black rubber, used to attract snakes.

VFF’s Latest HCC Course Explores Vermont’s Reptiles

Students in our latest Hogback Community College course–Conserving Vermont’s Reptiles–had plenty of up-close time with local reptiles.

Many eastern newts in the bottom of a white plastic container, partly submerged in water.

Conserving Vermont’s Amphibians with Jim Andrews

It’s the weekend after Easter, and thirteen students are on hands and knees on a forested hillside at the southern end of Snake Mountain, clustered in twos and threes… More >

cascading water flows into small pool in forest.

Welcome, Cold Brook!

In March, 2022, Vermont Family Forests purchased 95.6 acres of land in Bristol and Lincoln. Learn all about it!

Students in the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum Longboats Program explore the forest with VFF executive director David Brynn.

LCMM Students Meet Boat-building Pines Each January, local high school students in the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) Longboats Program jump into an intensive, semester-long process of building a traditional wooden boat together. One of the first things they do is head out into the woods with Vermont Family Forests executive director and conservation forester David Brynn to meet the …

VFF's new forester Ralph Tursini stands atop a massive burl.

Meet our New Forester, Ralph Tursini

We are thrilled to welcome Ralph Tursini to the Vermont Family Forests team. Ralph comes to us after 15 years with the University of Vermont (UVM), where he managed the school’s research forests, taught forestry and woodworking courses, and mentored students. Ralph discovered forestry when he came to UVM as an undergraduate. Forestry courses tapped into what interested him most—namely, …

Battery-powered, vegetable-oil-lubricated chainsaw equipment in a plastic storage bin.

The Joys of a Battery-powered, Veggie-lubed Saw

A battery-powered chainsaw, teamed with vegetable-based bar oil, makes for joyful work in the woods.

Expanding Vermont’s Current Use Program to include Wild Forests

The purpose of [the Agricultural and Managed Forest Land Use Value Program] is to encourage and assist the maintenance of Vermont’s productive agricultural and forestland; to encourage and assist in their conservation and preservation for future productive use and for the protection of natural ecological systems; to prevent the accelerated conversion of these lands to more intensive use by the …

Beaver pond in the foreground, in front of a row of white pines, behind which the sun is setting.

Welcome, Winter!

Tending the Solstice fire at the Waterworks By 4:15pm, the sun had dropped behind the white pines flanking the beaver wetlands at The Watershed Center’s Waterworks land in Bristol. On the west bank of the Norton Brook Reservoir, a fire blazed to welcome in the Winter Solstice. Candle-lit luminaries dotted the path to the reservoir, their glow intensifying as daylight …

Three boats filled with rowers row on choppy water.

Twenty Years of Local Boat-building, Rowing, & Racing

For 20 years, Vermont Family Forests partnered with Lake Champlain Maritime Museum to provide wood from healthy forests for LCMM’s boat-building program.

Clean, clear water is the premier forest product.

Testing the Waters, Tending the Land

This past summer, Vermont Family Forests teamed with the Addison County River Watch Collaborative to monitor the water quality of Isham Brook and Beaver Meadow Brook. The findings shed light on land health.