Giant mice

I thought I would show you a little more of Harvard Forest - some pictures, and those giant mice. I stay in an apartment in the old 1760s farmhouse, converted in the 1940s to provide staff and visitor accommodation. The main building, Shaler Hall was built in the 1940s too, some years after the establishment of Harvard Forest in 1907. Commuting takes about 1 minute, which will be handy when the snows come (cost of a set of snow tires significantly exceeds the value of my car, so I just need to avoid driving on snow).

'Community House' - the 1760s Sanderson Farmhouse

My office - Shaler Hall

The 'ship's boiler' - wood-fueled 1940s system deep in the basement

The other key feature of Harvard Forest is the Fisher Museum (Shaler and Fisher were early directors here). It's most famous feature are a series of 25 dioramas, showing the changes in New England's forests and landscapes. It's fair to say that before I arrived here, the dioramas weren't particularly on my list of things to get excited about - but actually, they're rather wonderful. My photography isn't great - combination of flash and glass cases not helpful - but the next 5 illustrate the transition from pre-colonial deep woods (interspersed with some open areas) through the immense clearances, agricultural abandonment and regrowth. Living here now, in Massachusetts with 62% forest cover, it's extraordinary to imagine the landscape looking like, well, north Devon really. These dioramas really make that contrast clearly.

Old-growth pre-colonization forest

1800 - peak of farming intensity. Those stone walls are threaded through today's forest, buried in drifts of autumn leaves 

1800 - peak of farming intensity

'Old-field' succession - the return of the trees after farming is abandoned

Mid 20th Century - the forest returned, with timber management dominant in some places

Oh, and the giant mice? Not so long ago a pair of mice found their way into one of the dioramas, and scrambled around in the wire trees, and dwarfed these model woodsmen, until the diorama could be carefully taken apart and the mice restored to a non-Lilliputian world.

Man-sized mouse