Barbara C. Weber in 1993 as director of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station. (Photo courtesy Barbara C. Weber)
As the oldest of 11 children, Barbara C. Weber is accustomed to being the “first.” With top family ranking comes responsibility, and Weber had plenty of it.
Growing up on her family’s 160-acre dairy farm in Bloomington, Wis., Weber, along with her siblings, helped clean the barn, pick up eggs and tend to the animals. Her innate curiosity and connection to nature led to her love of science. Read more »
Visitors sight several eagles during a recent guided boat tour offered by Land Between The Lakes. (Shannon Brockway/U.S. Forest Service photo)
While winter tends to be a quiet time for tourists at Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area in western Kentucky and Tennessee, tourists of a different feather flock to the lakes during our coldest months of the year. Read more »
During the warmer months the Cibola National Forest has many mountain bike trails and riding areas such as the Big Rock area. The Zuni Mountain Trail Partnership proposes to develop a network of interconnected mountain bike and hiking trails in the Zuni Mountains. (Zuni Mountain Trail Partnership photo)
The annual winter quadrathlon, staged on the Cibola National Forest and Grasslands, is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it’s so challenging that race organizers post a training program that starts more than three months prior to the event.
Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon athletes must:
· finish a 13-mile bike ride,
· complete a 5-mile run on a gravel road that climbs 1,250-feet in elevation,
· go two miles on cross-country skis for another 1,250-foot climb, and
· go one mile on snowshoes to gain another 600 feet to reach the 11,301-foot summit of Mt. Taylor. Read more »
Passport in Time volunteer Frances Mayse measures a nearly eight-foot-long shoulder blade of an Apatosaurus near the Last Chance quarry in May 2008. The graphic inset shows the location of the bone on the Apatosaurus. (U.S. Forest Service photo)
So many dinosaur fossils are being discovered in a quarry on the Comanche National Grassland in southeast Colorado that experts call the find a “tossed salad of dinosaur parts.”
Last fall, workers found the first Ceratosaurus tooth within the Picket Wire Canyonlands, which is best known for a huge dinosaur track site naturally exposed along the banks of the Purgatoire River. Read more »
A new manual released by the U.S. Forest Service offers solutions for using the millions of dead and dying urban trees infected by invasive insects in the eastern United States.
The free publication, developed by the Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory and the University of Minnesota Duluth, offers insight into the wide variety of products and markets that are available, and practical advice for considering the many options. Uses for insect-killed wood include lumber, furniture, cabinetry, flooring and pellets for wood-burning energy facilities. Last year, commemorative ornaments were made from beetle-killed trees for the 2012 Capitol Christmas Tree celebration.
: Since its discovery in 2002, the emerald ash borer has killed tens of millions of ash trees in 13 states. (U.S. Forest Service photo)
Read more »
Baltimore’s Oliver Neighborhood is a mix of occupied and abandoned rowhouses. The U.S. Forest Service is working with partners to host the Carbon Challenge green building design contest, promoting sustainable and livable neighborhoods in Baltimore and Providence, R.I. (L.F. Chambers, U.S. Forest Service photo)
Depending on who you talk to, there are between 16,000 and 20,000 vacant homes in Baltimore. Once a mid-20th century boomtown where residents built the liberty ships and liberator bombers that helped win World War II, the middle-class dreams of this city have been in a decades-long decline. Entire blocks stand empty, lifeless veneers of boarded windows and burnt-out roofs.
But the U.S. Forest Service is working to help change that, promoting livable and workable buildings for 21st-Century occupants, while retaining the vibrant culture and community that once characterized these streets. Read more »
1 Comment 