The peach, when ripe, is the most perfect of fruit: fragrant, beautiful, juicy, exquisitely delicious. An unripe peach - or, worse, a mealy peach - is just downright awful.
Frequently, peaches don't really seem to ripen well after they are picked; they only get softer, which is not at all the same. And peaches bruise very easily, transforming into unsightly orbs covered with small brown hollows in a few hours.
Early September is high peach season here in southern Vermont, and I urge you to take full advantage of the just-picked, fully ripe, and gorgeous local fruit that are now available.
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The three questions visitors most often ask Marilyn Distelberg are: Where is there a cell phone signal? What is there to do in Newfane? Does her store have a public restroom? The first two are easy to answer, she said; the third is a little indelicate. Of the barriers...
With Labor Day weekend marking the unofficial end of summer, so too does the Southeastern Vermont Watershed Alliance's (SeVWA's) river monitoring program come to an end for the 2013 season. There were 24 river and stream sites that SeVWA monitored this season in the West River and Williams River...
Demand for year-round local produce is on the rise, as demonstrated in increasing interest in winter farmers' markets and winter CSAs. Learn to store and market your produce year-round too. University of Vermont Extension, with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, offers a one-day workshop on crop storage for fruit and vegetable growers, aggregators, processors, and distributors. The workshop is Sept. 17, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the UVM Extension...
Births • In Jan Juc, Australia, Sept. 1, 2013, a daughter, Emma Lynn Barnard, to Lochlan and Lynna (Barrett) Barnard; grandaughter to Lynn Barrett of Dummerston Center; great-grandaughter to the late Russell R. “Bob” and Virginia “Ginna” Barrett; niece to John Grumeza and Bobby Grumeza; great-niece of Randi and Russ Barrett. Obituaries • Richard “Rick” Parker Bingham, 61, of Troy N.H. Died Aug. 22 after a short battle with cancer. Partner of Kelly Watson, and her children Shannon and Eric...
Newfane Garden Club meets on Sept. 5 NEWFANE - The Newfane Garden Club will hold a meeting and presentation on “Planning the Vegetable Garden,” on Thursday, Sept. 5, at the Newfane Congregational Church in Newfane, beginning at 2 p.m. Following a brief business meeting, Steve Squires, who is a Master Gardener from UVM Extension, will discuss things gardeners can do in the fall to make gardens ready for spring planting. Topics will include planning and scheduling tasks, soil preparation, weed...
Selectboard members say they are looking forward to welcoming former WKVT “Live and Local” host Steve West to the Sept. 9 meeting to discuss his proposal to land the town's information technology support business. “He can talk us through it. He's a good talker,” said Katie Buckley, town administrator, during the Aug. 26 Selectboard meeting.” West left WKVT in May after seven years hosting his talk show to focus full-time on Fearless Computing, the Brattleboro-based computer sales and service business...
The Selectboard agreed unanimously Aug. 21 to approve a request from the Vermont Land Trust for a letter of support for their application to purchase the development rights on the Bunker/Cassidy farm. The 169-acre plot, formerly owned by Dummerston residents Larry and Lynn Cassidy, will become the site for Bunker Farm, LLC through a proposal selected by Vermont Land Trust's Farmland Access program. The property, located on Bunker Road and now owned by the Vermont Land Trust, will be operated...
Guilford Free Library invites the public to a summer evening of music and light refreshments in a beautiful setting that only Vermont can provide. On Sept. 7, at 7:30 p.m., two world-class musicians perform a benefit cello celebration to support the work of the Guilford Free Library. Guilford resident Judith Serkin, with her colleague Paul Wiancko, will perform cello duets spanning four centuries of music at the historic Guilford Center Meeting House. Tickets are $25, and include a selection of...
Strolling of the Heifers has applied to take over the USDA Rural Development mortgage on the Robert H. Gibson River Garden. A sparsely attended public hearing last Friday afternoon at the River Garden marked the first step in transferring ownership of the Main Street property from Building a Better Brattleboro (BaBB) to Strolling of the Heifers. BaBB announced earlier this year that it wanted to sell the River Garden, and Strolling of the Heifers was selected from a group of...
New-grass and local contemporary folk trio, The Stockwell Brothers, perform at the next session of the Summer Sunday Socials Series at the Rockingham Meeting House, Sunday, Sept. 8, at 2 p.m. Vermont Festivals producer Ray Massucco said in the event announcement that putting the three in the Rockingham Meeting House was nothing less than a stroke of genius. (And it was his own idea, it turns out.) “The unplugged set means we're going to hear a lot more mandolin from...
Efforts to build a skatepark at the Crowell Lot on Western Avenue have stalled, and Brattleboro Area Skatepark is Coming (BASIC), the committee behind the proposal, is trying to come up with an alternative plan. The two-year building permit issued by the town Development Review Board (DRB) expired Aug. 15. This means that, even if the committee make no changes to the current 11,000-square-foot design, BASIC will have to apply for a new building permit. This news came as BASIC...
British playwright Sir David Hare's “The Breath of Life” is this week's Saturday Staged Reading at the Actors Theatre Playhouse, featuring Terri Storti and Shoshana Rihn. Performances are Sept. 7 and 14, at 7:30 p.m. Burt Tepfer directs. Staged readings, part of the Actors Theatre Playhouse's programming for many seasons, enables actors to sit at at a table and fully perform with script in hand. These aren't concert readings, but rather are fully realized performances - sans scenery and staging.
More than 100 volunteers from local companies, schools, and towns will work on more than 20 community improvement projects on Saturday, Sept. 7, at United Way of Windham County's annual Community Day of Caring. An estimated $10,000 worth of labor will be donated during the largest one-day volunteer service event in Windham County. The event's lead sponsors are C&S Wholesale Grocers, Derby Building & Woodwork, Holstein Association, and The Richards Group. The event begins at 8 a.m. with a kick-off...
The Windham Regional Commission has always maintained a neutral position as to whether or not the Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee power station should continue operation. We have taken this position so we could facilitate discussions among those on all sides of the issue. The Commission has, however, been very involved in Vermont Public Service Board dockets since 2007, arguing for what is in the best interest of the region when the plant does eventually cease operation, whenever and for whatever...
Sandglass Theater presents the return of “Puppets in Paradise,” a two-day extravaganza of performance, food, and community, on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 7 and 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. “Paradise,” set in the enchanted gardens of landscape architects Gordon and Mary Hayward, invites visitors to stroll amid the colors, forms, and scents of lush herbs, flowers, and other lovely flora. Puppets, theater artists, and musicians are there to delight you on your journey. The “Puppets” are 10 spectacular...
In a football game that was a long time in coming, the Brattleboro Colonels eked out a 14-8 win over the Bellows Falls Terriers in the season opener for both teams Friday night at Natowich Field. When the Colonels and Terriers last squared off on the football field, in 1999 and 2000, Brattleboro beat BF 44-24 and 63-6, respectively. Considering the long history of football at these two schools, this is a game that should be on the schedule every...
“110 Llandaff,” a short film written and directed by Jane Burton, an instructor in improvisation at the New England Youth Theatre (NEYT), begins shooting in Brattleboro on Sept. 9. Burton's semi-autobiographical film, stars David Koechner, Paula Pell, and Cassandra Dunn. It also boasts a supporting cast of 18 NEYT actors. The story concerns 13-year-old Mary Jo Parker and her physically and emotionally dysfunctional family, which Jo's parents, Dorothy and Peter, hold together with silence and humor. Two of Jo's five...
Starting this fall, Leland & Gray students who need dental care but whose families would otherwise struggle to pay for it can sign up with the school nurse for care at West River Valley Family Dental. This increased access to health care grew out of six months of planning by the members of L&G's Whole-Child Committee, which includes L&G and Windham Central faculty and staff. The committee says it is deeply grateful to Dr. Jared Rediske and his staff for...
On July 12, when the Vermont Land Trust named one winning group of farmers to reinvigorate the Cassidy Farm, 11 other applicants went away empty-handed. One of them, Newfane resident Ed McGrath, knowing that he had met the basic required criteria, and standing by with a barnful of equipment he had hoped to put to work, wanted to find out where his proposal to purchase the 169-acre farm had fallen short. To find out, McGrath - head of plant maintenance...
The Kurn Hattin Choir is set to perform at the Wings of Hope benefit for Hospice of Vermont and New Hampshire on Saturday, Sept. 7, in Lebanon, N.H., and Sunday, Sept. 8, at Landmark College in Putney. The time for both performances is noon to 3 p.m. The event includes a butterfly release to honor friends and family who have passed. Kurn Hattin students will sing a number of selections and invite the audience to join in the finale, Amazing...
It was shortly after New Year's Day when Ann Braden made a life-altering decision. On the way home from a pro-gun-control rally in Washington, D.C., in late January, she stopped at her mother's house in Newtown, Conn., the site of the mass shooting by a lone gunman of 20 children and six teachers last December. While visiting, the 33-year-old noticed 26 handmade stars adorning the town's street lamps: one for each victim. She recalled how rally attendees were challenged to...
The Bellows Falls Woman's Club, member of the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GWFC), begins its 2013-2014 club year with a meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at the United Church of Bellows Falls on School Street, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Presenters are Annette Spaulding and Patrick Madden, who'll address themselves to the historic facts surrounding the adventures of an elephant named Horatio which brought him to Putney. Annual club dues will be received; the club booklet will be available upon...
Aug. 27 was a bittersweet day for me, as I was visiting family and was not with my people in Vermont to hear the news that Entergy would close Vermont Yankee. I predominately shared over Facebook, but I would much rather have been there in person to share laughs, tears, hugs, to breathe deeply, then scheme about the next steps. As much as there was elation, confusion, anger last week from all sides of the VY issue, this is far,
After spending three weeks at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, four Vermont participants of The In-Sight Photography Project's Summer Exposures Program will exhibit their photographs and multimedia pieces at the Whetstone Station Restaurant and Brewery in Brattleboro. The exhibit opens at Gallery Walk on Friday, Sept. 6, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., and remains on exhibit throughout September. According to Linnea C., a high school junior and a 2013 participant who'll be on hand during Gallery Walk...
I'm not convinced yet that Bashar al-Assad has actually authorized use of chemical weapons in these circumstances. It's totally illogical for him to have done so. That would be my first point, one really needs to verify the facts. If evidence isn't very clear, then I wouldn't take action. The other point I would make is: what's so striking about the Syrian situation is the minorities have not joined the revolution. It's almost entirely a Sunni revolution. And that should...
The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon has been the subject of one of the longest and most intensive anti-nuke campaigns in the region. Even before the plant was constructed on the banks of the Connecticut River in 1972, anti-nuclear activists demonstrated against Vermont Yankee with a fervor that bordered on religious conviction. Anti-nuke groups formed - the New England Coalition, Citizens Awareness Network, Shut It Down Affinity Group, and the Safe and Green Campaign - and environmental organizations...
I find myself in tears for the men and women we send into war (our veterans), for the victims, and the many families harmed by Bashar Hafez al-Assad's callous and venal use of chemical weapons. There is no joy in this for me. I wanted our president, Barack Obama, to actually rise to his own rhetoric. I admit to being a fool. And I would again willingly pay the price for my hopefulness. I will still back him if he...
A late summer sun cast its warmth across streets that two years ago Tropical Storm Irene had left strewn with mud and debris. Wilmington's Memorial Hall, its basement flooded by Irene two years ago, welcomed the clusters of people that returned to remember the flood that washed away so much and the town that weathered the storm. “I don't even remember what my office looked like with four feet of mud in it,” said Selectboard Chair Meg Streeter, whose downtown...
The Selectboard on Aug. 26 voted to explore dissolving Algiers Fire District No. 1 in preparation for absorbing it into the town, and to bring on an attorney as early as October to help guide the work. Residents of Guilford established the district in 1993 to provide sewer service to those who lived in the village of Algiers. Since then, it's outlived its usefulness, the Selectboard said, so they'll turn again to Town Meeting voters to see if they'll authorize...
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin released the state's latest Irene recovery status report, “Irene, Reflections on Weathering the Storm,” during a remembrance ceremony held Aug. 28 at Memorial Hall. The report quantifies the state's recovery from Aug. 28, 2011's Tropical Storm Irene, and serves as the fourth and final written testimony from the Irene Recovery Office. According to the report, in the storm's wake, through July 30, 2013, nearly $1 billion in flood aid has come to Vermont through federal, state,
In the wake of the announcement that Entergy will be closing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant over the next year or so, I sat back and mused on the missed opportunities that decision represents. I've been studying - and occasionally covering - nuclear power since the 1970s, so I've had a ringside seat for the dramatic history of this technology. First, a bit of history. Back in the Eisenhower administration, the government determined that this terrible genie they'd let...
When lawmakers failed to pass the far-reaching farm bill recently - a bill that already threatened cuts in food stamps by $2 billion a year - their inaction also put an end to proposed regulations requiring farmers and food companies to exercise greater caution to prevent food contamination. These proposed rules would have ensured that food workers wash their hands, irrigation water be clean, and animals be kept out of fields, among other things. Such regulations seem warranted in view...
The great news about the impending shutdown of Vermont Yankee is a big victory for the home team, but one that is full of interesting ironies. For example, the first reason that Entergy gives for shutting down VY is “a natural gas market that has undergone a transformational shift in supply due to the impacts of shale gas, resulting in sustained low natural-gas prices and wholesale energy prices.” Shale gas, of course, which is accessed through hydrofracking, is one of...
The Selectboard on Aug. 28 approved a Planning Commission request for a resolution to pursue a $15,000 grant toward a 2014 zoning study of the Interstate 91 Exit 4 area. The study, if funded by the state's Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development, will allow Putney planners to collaborate with their Dummerston counterparts in assessing what Phillip Bannister, chair of the planning commission and development review boards, called the gateway to Putney. “Dummerston is going through issues with Route...
Residents and the chair of the town's Planning Commission spoke out at the Aug. 28 Selectboard meeting against the stated intent of AT&T to site a temporary, 85-foot-tall mobile cell tower on land across from the Basketville store on Route 5. “It's dreadful siting; it's the most visible part of that site, and it's very much in conflict with the cell tower regulations that we have, which are very explicit about the location of cell phone towers in the hills.
I hate to break the news to you, kid, but summer is done. It's September. Back from vacation, back to school, time to get some work done, blah, blah, blah. The good news is, most days it's cool out enough to eat again, and since your friends are back from their adventures, maybe you want to have some people over. And if you're having people over, you better have some cheese, or else they might not take you seriously. Or...
My sister's birthday is Sept. 19. She is a triple Virgo, meaning her sun, moon, and rising signs are all located in Virgo. What that means to non-crunchy-granola Brattleboroians is that she is a Very. Reliable. Person. She's the one in the family who demands that everyone call her when arriving home, to assure they are safe and sound. September is the month of serious-minded time, less frivolous Virgo energy. We've been playing all summer, la-de-da, and having a grand...
Equipment ¶Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket, cleaned ¶Plate that fits inside crock or bucket, cleaned ¶1-gallon (4-liter) jug filled with water, a rock (boiled) or other weight ¶Cloth cover Ingredients ¶3 to 4 pounds cucumbers (small to medium size; whole, uncut, free of nicks, soft spots, and damage; cleaned) ¶6 tablespoons sea salt, unrefined (not iodized) ¶4 heads fresh flowering dill or 4 tablespoons fresh dill or 4 tablespoons dried dill ¶4 heads or bulbs garlic (whole bulbs, not...