Susan Pike

2 days ago | seacoastonline.com | Susan Pike

We are midway through New England’s spring woodland wildflower season. The brilliant painted, red and nodding trilliums are blooming and will soon be followed by that showstopper — the lady’s slipper. However exciting it can be to find these beauties, it can be just as exciting to look for the tiny things, such as a diminutive, little plant known as goldthread that is also blooming, right now, in our woods.

1 week ago | seacoastonline.com | Susan Pike

One of my favorite springtime rituals is to gather some of the wild greens that live in my backyard and use them in everything from scrambles to salads. While I wish I had grown up with this as a tradition (a handful of my friends remember their moms out harvesting dandelion greens on those first sunny days of spring), instead it is a ritual I’ve had to purposefully acquire. Something that has become more and more meaningful to me the older I get, reminding me that I am part of nature.

3 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Susan Pike

One of my favorite memories was when we first moved to Maine, over 30 years ago, and discovered vernal pools (our house was surrounded by them). Vernal pools are seasonal forested wetlands that fill with water from snowmelt and spring rains, only to dry up by mid-summer. They provide a handy fish-free environment in which some of our local amphibians and many invertebrates (dragonfly and damselflies for example) love to lay eggs, thus avoiding hungry fish.

3 weeks ago | seacoastonline.com | Susan Pike

Susan PikePortsmouth HeraldOne of my favorite memories was when we first moved to Maine, over 30 years ago, and discovered vernal pools (our house was surrounded by them). Vernal pools are seasonal forested wetlands that fill with water from snowmelt and spring rains, only to dry up by mid-summer. They provide a handy fish-free environment in which some of our local amphibians and many invertebrates (dragonfly and damselflies for example) love to lay eggs, thus avoiding hungry fish.

1 month ago | seacoastonline.com | Susan Pike

Spring is here, but the signs of spring are slow to come. Most of the woodland wildflowers have yet to push up through the leaf litter on the forest floor.