Online North Grenville Times articles

As we get back into doing online output, we’re starting by posting links to online articles in the local newspaper, The North Grenville Times - https://ngtimes.ca/ - Due to unfortunate circumstances, the Times no longer posts individual articles, and we’ll be doing updated versions of subsequent articles as individual blog posts. These are citations from our CV here, with short explanatory quotes from the texts.

VERTEBRATES

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2024. Why is a Mudpuppy not an Axolotl? North Grenville Times, 14 Nov 2024 12(45):9 -  (“Not transforming into adults is widespread among Salamanders: all the species of Cryptobranchidae, Sirenidae, Amphiumidae and Proteidae, and some species of each of the other widespread families have retained the larval form into adulthood.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Frogs in the El Niño Spring. North Grenville Times, 2 April 2024 12(13):15 - https://ngtimes.ca/frogs-in-the-el-nino-spring/ (“Ever since the 1980s, we’ve noticed that in El Niño springs, Wood Frogs tend to have a disrupted breeding season, which results in eggs freezing after being laid in flooded ruts and other unsuitable sites.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2023. Arrival of Juvenile Leopard Frogs. North Grenville Times, 10 August 2023 11(31):10 . https://ngtimes.ca/arrival-of-juvenile-leopard-frogs/ (“On the 23rd of July, the first juvenile Leopard Frog of 2023 arrived at Bishops Mills.”)

Schueler, Fred & Aleta Karstad. 2023. Mudpuppy Nights in Oxford Mills. North Grenville Times, 23 March 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/mudpuppy-nights-in-oxford-mills/ (“The one place, in all of Canada, where they are routinely observed in the winter is below the dam in Oxford Mills”)

Schueler, Fred. 2022. Burn Henry Ford in Effigy Night. North Grenville Times, 13 October 2022. 10(40):13 https://ngtimes.ca/burn-henry-ford-in-effigy-night/ (“In the ritual calendar for eastern Ontario naturalists, the autumnal ceremony is ‘Burn Henry Ford in Effigy Night,’ a festival of revulsion and disgust at the slaughter automotive transportation imposes on the populations of any animal that needs to move across the landscape.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2020. Salamander Certification. North Grenville Times, 5 February 2020. https://ngtimes.ca/salamander-certification/ (“When forest certification was first discussed in the early 1990s, some us suggested that the abundance and diversity of Salamanders, the dominant forest floor vertebrate animals, should make a major contribution to calculations of forest health.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2020. Onset of Mudpuppy Nights in Oxford Mills. North Grenville Times, 28 October 2020 - https://ngtimes.ca/onset-of-mudpuppy-nights-in-oxford-mills/ (“Mudpuppy Nights have been bringing people face to face with Mudpuppies in the wild since 1998, and while they were begun in part to inspire others to observe winter Mudpuppies elsewhere, no other site has been found where they can be routinely seen.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2020. Did Red Squirrels invent Sugaring? North Grenville Times, 8(12):9, 25 March 2020 - https://ngtimes.ca/did-red-squirrels-invent-sugaring/ (“Bernd Heinrich noticed cuts made by Red Squirrels in a mixed stand of young hardwoods in western Maine, calculated that it would not have benefited the Squirrels’ metabolism to drink the dilute unevaporated sap, and found that the squirrels came back later to lick up the sticky drips after most of the water had evaporated.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2017. Record-breaking Treefrog on St-Lawrence Street in Bishops Mills. North Grenville Times 10 (5):14. 8 March 2017. - https://ngtimes.ca/record-breaking-treefrog-on-st-lawrence-street-in-bishops-mills/ (“it’s clear that, in line with the idea of global warming, spring is indeed coming earlier… This year’s frog is a full 6.5 weeks earlier than the previous earliest record.”)

INVERTEBRATES

Schueler, Fred. 2025. Japanese Beetles. North Grenville Times 13(28):12 - https://ngtimes.ca/japanese-beetles/ (“in Connecticut in the 1950s, this species was the most deplored alien species, but it was 2021 before we saw two in Bishops Mills.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Wrinkled Black Galls. North Grenville Times 22 August 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/wrinkled-black-galls/ (“Mordwilkoja vagabunda – I’d never heard of such a thing, even under the equally implausible-sounding English name of ‘Vagabond Poplar Gall Aphid’ until 22 November 2023”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2023. The 5th Canadian Freshwater Mollusc Research Meeting. North Grenville Times, 30 November 2023. https://ngtimes.ca/the-5th-canadian-freshwater-mollusc-research-meeting/ (“Offsetting the neglect we saw of some subjects in the meeting will inform our field work for the coming year: hybridization between eastern & western stocks of common mussels in eastern Ontario & western Quebec, the apparent decline in Zebra mussel populations, and annual movements of mussels in stream and lake bottoms.”)

Schueler, Fred, 2023. Hairy autumnal wanderers. North Grenville Times, 11(42):10, 26 October 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/hairy-autumnal-wanderers/ (“after nearly 40 years of not seeing black woolly bears in Bishops Mills, we saw one here in 2017, 2 in 2018 & 2019, and then 20 sightings in 2021”)

Schueler, Fred. 2021. Obvious Snails. North Grenville Times, 3 Nov 2021. 9(43):16 https://ngtimes.ca/obvious-snails/ (“Xerolenta obvia lives in open, disturbed limey places with grasses and herbs, often in enormous numbers.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2021. A Giant Buzzing force in the Community. North Grenville Times, 9(21):2. 2 June 2021 - https://ngtimes.ca/a-giant-buzzing-force-in-the-community/ (photograph by Aleta Karstad – “We’ve had six, ‘It was bigger than any wasp I have ever seen!’ e-mails from people from Osgoode to Prescott who have reported their observations of over-wintered queens looking for sites to establish colonies.”).

Schueler, Fred & Aleta Karstad. 2020. European Hornets in North Grenville. North Grenville Times, 3 June 2020 - https://ngtimes.ca/european-hornets-in-north-grenville/ (“While we’ve only seen the European Hornets in the past few years, they were introduced to North America in the mid-19th century, and are widely established.”)

Karstad, Aleta. 2022. Anaplasmosis – it’s here, and more dangerous than Lyme disease! North Grenville Times 10(25):15, 30 June 2022 - https://ngtimes.ca/anaplasmosis-its-here-and-more-dangerous-than-lyme-disease/ (“Son-in-law Rory took me to the Ottawa General and the Emerg doctor began to wonder if it could be Anaplasmosis – so I was tested for tick-borne Rickettsial diseases and sent home with a prescription for two weeks of Doxycycline which would knock out any of them.”)

PLANTS

Schueler, Fred. 2025. Household Invasives. North Grenville Times 13(28):12 - https://ngtimes.ca/household-invasives/ (“Is there a ‘green’ way to remove Buckthorn, Garlic Mustard, and Dog Strangling Vine? All of those species were introduced as garden plants, and then got away to both invade natural habitats and take over gardens and less-cultivated land around homesites.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Maple Fruit news. North Grenville Times, 12(50):4, 19 December 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/maple-fruit-news/ (“On the streets of Bishops Mills 2024 seems to have been a mast year for our three fall-fruiting Maples: the native Sugar Maple, the came-in-with-settlement Manitoba Maple, and the potentially invasive Norway Maple.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Alien Purple Unleashed. North Grenville Times, 12(32):15, 15 August 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/alien-purple-unleashed/  (“This spring, like 2017, started out dry, but the series of heavy rain systems through June and July again seems to have swept the biocontrol beetles and larvae off the Purple Loosestrife plants.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Native Creekside Purple. North Grenville Times, 12(32):15, 15 August 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/native-creekside-purple/ (“If you see massive mounds of pearly purple bloom along a creek or ditch, you’re seeing Eutrochium maculatum or Spotted Joe-Pye Weed.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Oh to be the Balsam Ragwort, brilliant on the Limestone Plain. Oh to be the golden emblem of that cedary terrain! North Grenville Times, 12(22):15, 6 June 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/oh-to-be-the-balsam-ragwort-brilliant-on-the-limestone-plain/ (“In early June, the shallow soil of many of our nutrient-poor oldfields and roadsides are spangled with low swathes of the yellow blooms of Balsam Ragwort, Packera paupercula”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Early Daffodils. North Grenville Times, 12(15):14, 18 April 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/early-daffodils/ (online text editorially corrupted by apostrophe in “Bishop’s Mills.” – “In Bishops Mills, the average date of their blooming since 2005 is April 17, so this year’s opening on April 9 was more than a week earlier than the average.”)

Schueler, Fred & Aleta Karstad, 2023. Cathartic Buckthorn! North Grenville Times, 11(49):10, 14 December 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/cathartic-buckthorn/ (“This invasive shrub or tree is called European, Purging, or Common Buckthorn, though we call it ‘Cathartic,’ in accordance with the policy of having frightening-sounding English names for invasive species.”)

Schueler, Fred, 2023. Frangulous Buckthorn! North Grenville Times, 11(43):7, 2 November 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/frangulous-buckthorn / (“In our 1995 survey of the ecology of the Kemptville Creek drainage basin, there was an entry for: ‘Rhamnus frangula (Glossy Buckthorn). Widespread and Invasive. Seemed to become much more frequent near Bishops Mills about 1991. It may come to be a more important invader than R. cathartica because it invades wetland as well as upland habitats.’ – This is a forecast which has come true.”

Schueler, Fred, 2023. World’s largest female invades the Cheese Factory. North Grenville Times, 11(42):10, 26 October 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/worlds-largest-female-invades-the-cheese-factory/#comment-83406 (“it looks like these little plants came as root fragments in the gravel of the pad. Under the Ontario Invasive Species Act, it is illegal to buy, sell, trade, propagate, or purposely grow Japanese Knotweed”)

Schueler, Fred, 2023. Roadside Swathings. North Grenville Times, 5 October 2023 - https://ngtimes.ca/roadside-swathings/ (“When we moved to Grenville County in 1978, we casually noticed that while Grapes were common, they didn’t seem to go very aggressively up into the trees, but now it seems that a third of the roadside bushes and trees are swathed in cascades of autumn-golden Grape foliage.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2023. Burdockery. North Grenville Times 11(35):11 - https://ngtimes.ca/burdockery/ (“We’ve recently engaged with Burdock because when Fred protested that it wasn’t an invasive species in eastern Ontario, he was put on the Burdock ‘Best Management Practices’ team of the Ontario Invasive Plants Council.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2023. Tempered Purple. North Grenville Times, 17 August . 11(32):12- https://ngtimes.ca/tempered-purple/ (“If you see Loosestife that’s less than a metre tall, you’re seeing evidence of the effectiveness of the insect biocontrol of the species, but the Loosestrife roots are persistent and beetle populations fluctuate from year to year and between different areas and habitats.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2023. Golden-spangled Lawns (II). North Grenville Times. 11(27):6 (photos by Aleta Karstad) - https://ngtimes.ca/golden-spangled-lawns-ii/ (“Pilosella officinarum, Mouse-ear Hawkweed, which is native to Europe and northern Asia. The blooms are dandelion-like, but a bright lemon-yellow colour and the flower rays are toothed at their ends.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2023. Triumph of the Bromes. North Grenville Times. 11(23):12 - https://ngtimes.ca/the-triumph-of-the-bromes/ - as a reply to a white-washing of herbiciding - https://ngtimes.ca/weed-spraying-facts/ (“the ‘Theorem of the Stupid Worker,’ proposes that managers assume their employees are so incapable of learning to distinguish species of plants that they just have to spray indiscriminately.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2021. Billowy stands of an invisible invasive. North Grenville Times. 9(50):28 22 Dec 2021. - https://ngtimes.ca/billowy-stands-of-an-invisible-invasive/ (“...the North Branch of the South Nation River at Inkerman, where the whole exposed bed of the stream and banks is a solid mass of Reed Canary Grass.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2021. Interbreeding with Aliens. North Grenville Times. 9(46):13, 24 Nov 2021,

https://ngtimes.ca/interbreeding-with-aliens/ (“It was quite unexpected to hear, in 1987, real news that the widespread and familiar Narrow-leaved Cattail, Typha angustifolia, had been shown to be a European species, with a documented spread across North America from a first record in 1820.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2021. Buckthorns. North Grenville Times. 9(40):6 13 Oct 2021. - https://ngtimes.ca/buckthorns/ (“In eastern Ontario, invasive shrub and Buckthorn are synonymous, and, in different areas, dense stands of one or both species really reduce the habitat and growth of forest floor herbs and tree regeneration.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2021. The Duchess of Oldenburg. North Grenville Times. 1 Sept 2021. https://ngtimes.ca/the-duchess-of-oldenburg/ (“In most years it’s the first Apple tree to bloom, and it bears big round very early fruit, pale yellow with a red streaking when ripe: soft, deliciously sweet and sour, very tender and often bruising as they hit the ground when they fall.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2021. Does mowing down the Golden Parsnips sustain them? North Grenville Times 29 July 2021. https://ngtimes.ca/does-mowing-down-the-golden-parsnips-sustain-them/ (“the Parsnip Webworm has been overlooked as a biocontrol agent, because it was already here.”)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2021. Cleavers cleaving to brushy backyards – Looking for Cleavers’ stories. North Grenville Times. 30 June 2021. https://ngtimes.ca/cleavers-cleaving-to-brushy-backyards-looking-for-cleavers-stories/ (“This is apparently a native species, found all across the Northern Hemisphere, but this spring it’s acting like an invasive around our homesite, clambering over Garlic Mustard and other invasives like a green surf “)

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2021. Garlic Mustard: Delicious Demon Weed of the Woods. North Grenville Times. 9(19):16, 19 May 2021, https://ngtimes.ca/garlic-mustard-delicious-demon-weed-of-the-woods/ (“We first recognized Garlic Mustard on 8 May 1994, in the urban residential valley of the Credit River at Port Credit, where we identified an ‘unrecognized herb on bare soil of steep slope’ from the Peterson wildflower Field Guide.”)

Schueler, Fred & Aleta Karstad. 2021. Plums being pocketed. North Grenville Times, 9(17):15. 5 May 2021. https://ngtimes.ca/plums-being-pocketed/ (“with the Canada Plums in Grenville County, the major determining factor is a fungus, a species of Taphrina, and in most years in place of fruits, the bushes bear hollow, spore-dispersing, bladder-like growths, a disease called ‘plum pockets.’”)

Schueler, Fred. 2021. Double your Dandelions. North Grenville Times 9(16):2, 28 April 2021, https://ngtimes.ca/double-your-dandelions/ also in North Dundas Times, 2(16):2. (photo by Aleta Karstad - “in 1989 Ottawa botanist Dan Brunton published an account of Taraxacum palustre, the Marsh, Fen, or Oldfield Dandelion, that he’d found in eastern Ontario and northern New York.”)

Thomson, Hilary. 2020. Emerald Ash Borer a Concern in North Grenville. North Grenville Times, 2 December 2020 8(48):4 - https://ngtimes.ca/emerald-ash-borer-a-concern-in-north-grenville/ (based on report by FWS - “Fred notes that, although there are a modest number of ash trees that are infested by the EAB in the municipality, it doesn’t seem to result in sudden complete mortality.”).

Schueler, Fred, & Aleta Karstad. 2020. The Marijuana scent of autumnal 400-series highways! North Grenville Times - 1 October 2020 - https://ngtimes.ca/the-marijuana-scent-of-autumnal-400-series-highways/ (“Even those who drive with their windows closed may have noticed the distinctive waft of Dyssodia papposa along Hwy 416… this low-growing annual species, with small intensely yellow composite flowers...”)

Schueler, Fred. 2020. Golden-Spangled Lawns. North Grenville Times, 5 August 2020. https://ngtimes.ca/golden-spangled-lawns/ (photo by Aleta Karstad - “Back in the day, lawns were either green or brown, depending on their water supply, and weren’t spangled with the brilliant patches of buttercup yellow which Bird’s-foot Trefoil now supplies on so many of them.”)

Wittaker, Michael. 2019. Trilliums Nodding in Limerick Forest. North Grenville Times – 12 June 2019 - https://www.ngtimes.ca/trilliums-nodding-in-limerick-forest/ (photograph by FWS - “Since Trilliums are dispersed by ants, enticed into carrying seeds by tasty growths on the corners of the seeds, they move into new habitats very slowly.”).

Thomson, Hilary. 2018. Invasive Species in Burritts Rapids. North Grenville Times, 5 December 2018. p.2 https://www.ngtimes.ca/invasive-species-in-burritts-rapids/ (1 photo by Aleta Karstad - “To address the Butterbur problem, and keep it from spreading, all the plants, including their roots and rhizomes, were removed from the area and replaced by native grasses and plants.”).

GENERAL ECOLOGY

Schueler, Fred. 2024. A Nutrient Gradient Grove for North Grenville. North Grenville Times 12(30):5 1 August 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/a-nutrient-gradient-grove-for-north-grenville/ (“The depletion of our soils began with the Loyalist settlers’ practice of burning the trees as they cleared the land and selling the resulting potash to England.”)

Schueler, Fred. 2024. Feeding from the clouds: Net ombrotrophy as a measure of the health of landscapes. North Grenville Times 12(8): 29 Feb 2024 - https://ngtimes.ca/feeding-from-the-clouds-net-ombrotrophy-as-a-measure-of-the-health-of-landscapes/ (“On most substrates, mature communities allow so little of the major nutrients past their root webs that they make a net removal of fixed nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium...”)

Schueler, Fred. 2022. Green & Growing? North Grenville Times 10(46):12, 24 Nov 2022 - https://ngtimes.ca/green-growing/ (“If we’re going to be ‘green,’ we’d better attend to proposals for a ‘green new deal’ which combine emergence from the pandemic with action to mitigate and offset climate change.”)

Thompson, Hilary. 2018. A Naturalist's view of the ice storm. The North Grenville Times 6(3):1-2 17 Jan 2018 (reproduction of journal page by Aleta Karstad) http://www.ngtimes.ca/naturalists-view-ice-storm/ (“I measured the excess diameter of the twigs caused by the ice,” Fred remembers. “There was 50 mm of excess diameter on everything.”)

Schueler, Fred . 2026. The Canadian Library of Drifted Material. North Grenville Times 14(5):8, 12 Feb 2026 (1 watercolour by Luna Lopez-Andrews) see https://quietcuratorialtime.blogspot.com/2026/03/canadian-library-of-drifted-material.html (“Like many pretentious-sounding names, this tries to express what it really is. It originates in our collections of drifted material from shores all across Canada, and its purpose is to serve as a library from which information about conditions along streams and lakes can be extracted.”)

Graham, Tom. 2025. Bishop’s [sic] Mills takes measures. North Grenville Times , 27 February 2025. https://ngtimes.ca/bishops-mills-takes-measures/ (comparison of Main Street 1950s & 2025 snowfall with FWS snow profile data).

Schueler, Fred & Aleta Karstad. 2018. Ecological Issues in North Grenville: Maybe it's time the municipality has an Environment Committee? North Grenville Times 6(40):15, 3 October 2018. https://www.ngtimes.ca/ecological-issues-in-north-grenville-maybe-its-time-the-municipality-has-an-environment-committee/ - perhaps the trigger for the Environmental Action Advisory Committee, and an outline of climate change problems.

Thompson, Hilery. 2017. More than just roadkill. North Grenville Times 15(5):26. 8 Nov 2017. http://www.ngtimes.ca/just-road-kill (1 photo by Aleta Karstad – doing-the-streets in Bishops Mills, and summary of other road ecology activities & structures)