nature

The little Presbyterian church in the big woods

Ten pairs of trail shoes crunch up the carriage road. A dry August has browned trailside grass and prompted some early color amid the maples. Grasshoppers shoot off in all directions. A few monarch butterflies drift by in pursuit of milkweed. We are on our way to Elder’s Grove, an 8-acre stand of old-growth white pines that date to 1675.

‘When the Earth is sick, we are sick’

Speaking with the urgency of a man whose house is on fire, the Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes issued a wake-up call Sunday for everyone to notice the precarious state of the environment and everything living in it, from birds and trees to humankind.