The Land Group

By Ben Alder | From Kingston
June 2026
Recently, I have been thinking a great deal about time.
As I approach my fifty-first birthday and watch my children grow up, the precious nature of time is easily internalized.
Time can never be saved, only spent.
One of the reasons I have always been fascinated by...

A Reconciliation of Land & “Forever"
A breezy morning here at Kingston forced me to sit down and think through a question that revealed itself so clearly just this week.
When we consider a conservation easement, what are we actually protecting?

In conservation, the answer is usually implied. We remove the highest and...

Adaptive Permanence in Conservation
Why conservation was never meant to freeze land in time
Watching the sunrise this morning over the headwaters of the frozen Annemessex River, it’s hard not to confront how easily a place like this could disappear. Murray (our black cat) and I both fixate on the sun’s rays...

Pictured: Ian McNair, who carved and painted all the decoys

Saturday November 29, 2025
7:11 AM

Coffee in hand, I walked around the corner of the pump house. The frost was heavy; the switchgrass cracked under my boots.

A week ago we were hammering the calls, watching teal cut acrobatics across the marsh. Now...

Blurring the lines between architecture, nature, and self

In her 1937 memoir Everybody’s Autobiography, Gertrude Stein wrote the oft-quoted line, “There is no there there.” That phrase has always stayed with me—perhaps because I’ve always believed so strongly in a sense of place.

Where we live, work, and move through the world profoundly shapes...

March 3, 2025

After Sunset at Kingston

Measuring time is clearly easy. We all do it every day. I am consistently late for nearly everything. It is not, however, because I cannot tell time, it is because I am over optimistic about time and my eagerness to accomplish as much as I...

In 1949, Mr. Aldo Leopold authored The Sand County Almanac.  His writings have proven to be a watershed moment for conservation.  They shaped and broadly underpinned the conservation principles still implemented today.   

I started my Sunday early having awakened before the sun.  It is truly a gift to be in this...

7:25 Monday: March 18, 2024

The Spring Equinox is tomorrow. A day of equal light and equal dark. This planetary event marks the first day of Spring, while Easter and the Resurrection are only a few days away.  Easter in fact is intended to occur after the first full moon following...

Good Morning…

Hope this note finds you well!

When my daughter Aurelia was 9 years old (English Teachers Stop Reading), she said “Fall is the Most Best Time of Year.”  I could not agree more. October and November is simply the best time of year throughout the Chesapeake…

As the temperatures fall, trees,...

7:07 AM - October 26, 2023

Today is a Thursday.  The fog is clearing over the big field having been recently turned over for a planting of winter wheat.  An orange haze fills the spaces between the pines giving a them shape and contrast in the morning sky.  The birds are...