How to make lumber from your woodlot for use in your home

Assembling the logs before cutting. For many years, I have been thinning my woodlot on my 12 acres in upstate New York. The forest is a result of the abandonment of a pasture in 1960, so the density of trees is quite high. This is a perfect time...

The coast Amalfi, Italy

Of all the vacations my wife and I have taken in our lives, the trip to the Amalfi Coast was our best. Wine, food, shops, and the scenery were all extremely memorable.

A spider up my nose, hummingbirds, and butterfly bush

Watch out crab spiders! DrTom's big nose is stuck in the flower of a butterfly bush.Butterfly Bush My favorite flowering plant at DrTom's is the butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii). I have purple and white varieties. This woody perennial gets about 8...

Staying happily married

Banana seeds

Trip to Uganda In 2007 I returned from a trip to Uganda with a special botanical prize, or so I thought? I had gone there as part of an ecoagriculture project with colleagues Louise Buck and Jeff Milder. We were there to learn what we could about...

Tent camping in Kenya

Cape Buffalo As the sun was setting on my first evening in the Mara, our Maasai guide halted the jeep in the middle of the savanna. It was during the wildlife migration, but the zebra and wildebeest had stopped moving for the night. Wildebeest moved...

Of Bedouins and Bedrock: Life in the Sinai Desert, Egypt

Bedouin elder in prayer on Mediterranean beach Bedouins If you want to see an ancient tribe of people and the incredibly difficult environment in which they live, go to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. As a biologist, I searched the terrain at the base...

Pura vida, Costa Rica!

Should a professor behave this way?

DrTom with some of his favorite peeps Just a little hip-hop before a lecture This is unbecoming a prof DrTom and Valerie were unbeatable at beer pong, until THOSE guys came along The last field biology class I ever taught, 2007 For nearly 30 years,...