Good morning friends, It is 3:00 am. The forest glows with an eerie illumination from a large moon muted by a thin sheet of translucent clouds. Tree branches shake and rattle in an aggressive wind. I step outside onto the Treehouse porch. I am surprised to find the wind blowing in my face. A wind from the east. It is unusual. What does Mother Nature have in mind for today?  In the moonlight the thermometer reads 27° F. I carry in an armful of firewood and restore the fire in

Good morning friends,   The forest is still. A quiet that happens when the wind is resting, when the birds have not yet arrive, when the world has still not awakened from its winter sleep. The sun peaks over the horizon (Photo 1). What life will it bring to the day?   I arrived at Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary yesterday for one night of forest solitude - trying to fit a brief dose of nature's simplicity into a complicated schedule of civilized world responsibilities. See

Greetings friends, The sun is out in Michigan again, and with it a bit of spring warmth. It is a spring teaser. I was in the forest at Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary only briefly this week. Just long enough to exchange sap reservoirs for my maple taps.  I am always surprised at the difference in sap production from different trees. My taps are forty feet apart, with both trees having similar sun exposure. Both trees are on the edge of a meadow.  The south tree had a full

Hello friends, Have you tapped a maple tree this year? Now is the time. I put in two taps last weekend (Photo1).  Tapping is an incredibly easy process. There are many kinds of hardware available; from the traditional galvanized bucket that hangs from a spile channeling the sap drip, to individual plastic sap bags that hang from the tree at each tap, to a network of blue-tinted, flexible polyethylene tubing that delivers sap from many trees to a central reservoir. The first t

Good day, friends, The forest is easily visible during the wee hours of the morning, well before sunrise. From the Treehouse I can see across the meadow to a thicket of tag alders on the opposite side of the small stream that weaves a curvy path to the West Branch of the Clam River. Perhaps it is the fresh blanket of white snow settled on all the forest’s surfaces yesterday that makes the world visible in night’s darkness. Snow on the forest floor. Tree branches. Pine needles

Greetings!   Where did this Michigan sunshine and radiant warmth come from? It is mighty pleasant, but not a lasting thing. I will take a few days of it – whatever we can get. This is a great time to be in the woods. Find a state park close by and walk the trails!   Because I am in Salem this week, I trekked several miles in Maybury State Park. The hardwood forest of tall trees is lovely, even in the winter when the trees are without leaves (Photo 1). What I like about a wint

Hello friends,   Animals, including humans, are challenged in life by basic requirements for survival: food, water, shelter. All of these are amplified in colder climates during the winter season.  For modern humans, two more secondary requirements could be added to the list: fuel (to warm our shelters, cook our food, and keep our water from freezing), and transportation (which enables everything else). As humans, we have evolved beyond thinking of things in those terms.  We

Good morning, nature enthusiasts,   By the time I left Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary this week the coldest of the cold had already passed. I remember wondering about a disagreement in the Treehouse thermometers. The one on the east side had bottomed out and was reading -19F at daybreak (Photo 1). The one on the west side may also have been bottomed out and read -31F (Photo 2), but I considered that to be impossibly cold and thought that the thermometer must not register

Greetings, friends – from the wilds of Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary,   ‘Tis a deeper degree of winter in the forest this week. -12F this morning on the Treehouse thermometer (Photo 1). It will be colder tomorrow. This coldness is amplified with a layer of stiff wind - about 15mph - that makes things feel colder and brings more danger when stepping outside. But the brutal cold does not wipe out the mornings sunrise (Photo 2.) Mother Nature paints the sky no matter the te

Good day, friends,   Do you ever feel the call of the wilds tugging you hard to participate?  To step outside and feel the real temperature. Ignore the thermometer. Feel a breeze kiss your cheek. Listen to a group of lingering geese bark and honk as they decide whether they will really migrate this year.   “It’s cold,” they say, “but warmer on the ground than up with the wind.”    Let the sun shine into your eyes, not filtered by a piece of glass, a screen, or a curtain. Or l

Good morning, friends, The Michigan sky is still dark, waiting for its sunrise... and the world is quiet. Snow fell again yesterday. It came down gently. Postage stamp-size flakes floating tentatively to the ground (Photo 1). Each flake perhaps expecting to melt upon landing. After all, only 24 hours ago the temperature was 55°F. But they did not. Each spread its square inch of whiteness on ground washed by a week of rain until they covered it all (Photo 2). And then more pe

Hello nature enthusiasts, I must admit, today I am not at Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary, I am home in Salem - planning. Planning several road trips that will consume much of January and February and will sweep through much of Michigan’s lower peninsula to visit bookshops and libraries; to show them FOREST LEGEND: THE TALE OF OL’ SPLIT TOE, and to leave them with the publisher’s sell sheet with page of literary praise for FOREST LEGEND on the reverse (Photo 1).   I truly

Welcome to Michigan Forest Life, When I received a memories collage from OneDrive showing old winter photos from what is now Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary (Photo 1), the thing that caught my eye was the small photo at the lower left – a photo of me lifting a hand-built wooden ladder into place. The ladder was 16 feet long and just reached the Treehouse platform. In those days, I lowered the ladder each time we were away and locked it to a tree forty feet away.  The platf

Greeting Friends,   A strong wind rushes through the forest. Not just a gust. It has been blowing all night. It shakes the Treehouse. It is a wind that I hear and feel. Snow covers the ground. It is not deep, but it is pure winter. 13° F. Inside, a fire in the woodstove warms the Treehouse. The interior is still dark. I am waiting for the sky to lighten it naturally; the oil lamps remain idle this morning. It has been one month since I spent a night in the Treehouse.  I feel

Greetings Friends, Mother Nature is once again putting the winter into Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary (Photo 1, 2). My trip this week was brief but sweet. The West Branch of the Clam River was frozen across in some stretches and open water in others (Photo 3, 4). At this time of year, I wonder how wild animals will get along. How long will food remain accessible? How long before the food that is easy to get has all been eaten? And then what? I see their tracks - deer, co

Greetings friends, I feel like I have been immersed in the Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary forest for a week.    I have not.  I have been 850 miles away, cooped up in a small recording booth in Vermont, narrating the Audiobook, FOREST LEGEND: THE TALE OF OL' SPLIT TOE (Photo1). But the story is written with the landscape and terrain of Winterfield Pines used as an anchor to develop the fictional setting of FOREST LEGEND, and to imagine the way it has changed across time. 

Greetings friends,   It is the last day of November. A healthy dose of real winter white has swept across Michigan. Snow has a way of making you feel alive - more alive.   As 2025 brings on its last few weeks, permit me to take a paragraph or two to thank you for your ongoing tolerance and patience with these Michigan Forest Life emails. Most of you know that I write them while at Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary using my cell phone. There is neither electricity, nor Wi-Fi,

Good morning from Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary,   The lit match carries enough light to guide it to an oil lamp. I replace the lamp's glass chimney and move to the next lamp before the match burns down.   Next the woodstove. It is 45°F inside the Treehouse - colder than I normally let it get. I let the fire burn down early last night, wondering how long the treehouse would hold its heat tonight. I was warm in bed with heavy blankets. There is a small stack of split fire

Greetings friends,   I sit in the open forest waiting for the sky to lighten. This morning's cloud cover is likely to nudge out any colorful sunrise. It is 6:40 am. I am deep in the woods. A mile from any serious country road. Not too far from my own forest trail.   A rooster calls with its clear, singular chime - like a morning cuckoo from the clock on the wall. Where is that rooster? There is not a farm within a mile as the crow flies. Its voice carries in the clear air. I

Good morning, friends, I sensed winter in the air when I left Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary a few days ago. Perhaps it was temperatures flirting with the freezing mark each morning. Perhaps it was the late fall aroma imprinted in my brain, instinctively reminding me that this smell is followed by snow.  Maybe it was a subconscious reaction to the breeze. Its direction. Its gentle bite. The feel of what cannot be seen. “Soon,” Mother Nature said in her subtle way. “Listen