This spring marks my first-ever attempt at making maple syrup, and I have no idea what I'm doing.
Luckily I have two resources on my side: the Internet and Fred. The Internet is that place with Facebook and the cat videos, and Fred is my next-door neighbor. The Internet is helpful because there's no shortage of tips and tricks for hobby sugarers. And Fred is helpful because, for the last quarter century, he's been making maple syrup in the sugarbush that straddles both our properties.
I've only recently begun hounding Fred for tips on sugaring, but I've been mining the Internet and reading books about it all winter.
Our Native American predecessors did it. Heck, even my attorney in town does it as a hobby. So I'm sure I can do this.
At the recent Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast, the question came up: “What is the Legislature doing for business?” Because I had to work at my “paying job,” I was unable to attend. If I had, I would have had lots to report. • First of all, we...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of bluegrass and newgrass by The Lonely Heartstring Band and The Stockwell Brothers at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill, on Sunday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. The Lonely Heartstring Band are Berklee College of Music students George Clements, Patrick...
Here's how it commenced: One night when I was 12, maybe 13, I caught the film Ten Little Indians on TV. It was the 1965 version - not the best (see 1945's And Then There Were None), but compelling all the same. The setup and execution (literally!) really grabbed me: Take 10 strangers, strand them in an isolated mansion, and toss in some shadowy past sins, a slew of quirky murders, and an embedded killer, and what have you got?
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), March 11, 2014, a daughter, Charlotte Leigh Cote-Abel, to Lindsey Cote-Abel of East Dover; granddaughter to Jonathan Abel of East Dover, Wendy Speid of Londonderry, and Ted O'Brien of Auburn, N.Y.; great-granddaughter to Regena and the late George Cote of Westminster; the late Robert and Charlotte Abel of Townshend, and Carleen and the late Thomas O'Brien of Auburn. • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), Feb. 20, 2014, a daughter, Josephine Ginger Frank-Divoll, to Erica Frank...
Dear Martin Langeveld: I just read your rebuttal to Howard Fairman's letter [“Are SeVEDS board members up to the task at hand?,” Letters, Mar. 5]. My first reaction was to take issue with your aggressive tone with Mr. Fairman, someone who is trying to figure this out (as we all are) and who has every right to be concerned in light of the track record of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC), with which the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies...
When Main Street Arts (MSA) charted its course towards a $1 million renovation project to make its 1850s Odd Fellows building accessible to everyone, the leaders of the nonprofit never expected the arts community to respond so enthusiastically. Sparked by the inspiration of artists from different disciplines, MSA is collaborating, in a true community effort, on the Five Seasons Project, a fundraising and creative undertaking involving music, poetry, performance, and visual art. The whole project draws on all the arts...
Although it was formed a few years ago, it took some time for the Brattleboro-based Intrinsic Beauty of Invisible Things (IBIT) Dance Company to mount a tour. This week, IBIT director Brenda Siegel, who co-founded the company with choreographer Amy Softic, said her company will try a three-date “mini-tour” in New England, with stops in Northampton, Mass. on Thursday, March 27, and Cambridge, Mass., on Friday, March 28, before returning to Brattleboro for a performance the Latchis Theatre on Saturday,
Don't judge Gurf Morlix only by the company he keeps, even if it does provide a fine starting point: eminent musical artists such as Lucinda Williams, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Warren Zevon, Ian McLagan, Patty Griffin, Robert Earl Keen, Michael Penn, Buddy Miller, Mary Gauthier, Tom Russell, Jim Lauderdale, and Slaid Cleaves. Instead, listen to “Gurf Morlix Finds the Present Tense” (2013), his sixth solo album, and you'll understand why his blue-ribbon associations as a producer, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist have led...
Conk-a-reeeee! I sit in my study, waiting out yet another late-winter snow storm. But I know that spring is here. The visual signs are missing, but the auditory signals are certain. Conk-a-reeeee! By the still-frozen riverbanks, ponds, and marshes, one of the earliest announcers of spring has been passing through since early March. Nine inches of black feathers, he stretches his neck skyward, opens his pointed bill, and belts out nasal, gurgling phrases that can only be called a “song”
Williamsville/Newfane Talent Show March 29 WILLIAMSVILLE - Spring is welcomed here this year with the return of the annual Williamsville/Newfane Talent Show, Saturday, March 29 at 7 p.m. in the Williamsville Hall. A decades-old tradition in the village, the show features a range of talented area performers young and old. Among the many acts are the Spicer family, Johanna Gardner, Gary Keiser and Bahman Mahdavi, Annie Landenberger, Carter Falk, Nastia and Veronica Stevens, Ralph Sherman, Alice Coyne, and Arik Clark.
Robert DuCharme announces auditions for his production of Neil Simon's “Plaza Suite” on Wednesday, April 2, and Thursday, April 3, both at 6:30 p.m. at Brattleboro Savings and Loan's Community Room (across from the library in the center of town. Enter through the back door). Performances are at Williamsville Grange on June 20, 21, 27, and 28. DuCharme will use three casts, one for each act - a move, he says, that cuts rehearsal time and reduces pressure for the...
The name Dunklee has a long and proud history in U.S. Nordic skiing. Stan Dunklee, an NCAA Nordic champion, competed in the 1976 and 1980 Olympics and, along with Bill Koch, was one of the top U.S. ski racers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Everett Dunklee was a Vermont cross-country champion in 1962 and 1963 and competed in the 1972 Olympics. Biathlete Susan Dunklee of Craftsbury (Stan's daughter and Everett's niece) wrote her own chapter on March 20...
Conductor and pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn discusses the writing of his father, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and their family's life in Cavendish in the 1980s at Brooks Memorial Library on Friday, March 28, at 7 p.m. His talk, “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Writing the Red Wheel in Vermont,” part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series, is free and open to the public. It is the talk he was to have given in February at the library that was postponed by snow. Solzhenitsyn...
The Brattleboro Housing Authority announces it is accepting initial wait list applications for the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Program between Monday, April 7, at 8 a.m., and Friday, May 2, at 4:30 p.m. Applications received before or after that period will be returned to the applicant without being added to the Housing Choice Voucher wait list. For a Section 8 wait-list application, call the Brattleboro Housing Authority at 802-254-6071, visit the BHA office at 224 Melrose Terrace (Monday through...
Learning to memorize and recite Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has been a rite of passage at the Greenwood School in Putney for 35 years. “The speech may be relatively short. It takes about two minutes to say. But memorizing it by heart poses a substantial challenge for our students, as it does for many others of the general public,” says Connie Evans, who long taught social studies at the boarding school for young men struggling with learning disabilities. More than...
Shela Linton did not experience racial prejudice until her first day in kindergarten. The child of mixed-race parents and with light-colored skin, she led a sheltered childhood until that moment she was pushed on the ground by her playmates who told her, “We don't want you to play with us, nigger.” Stunned and hurt, Linton did not even know what that word meant. When she explained to her parents what had happened, they feebly tried to console her by turning...
It was Saturday, so I got to wake up at my own leisure, coming slowly to consciousness as the sounds of the day whispered into my brain - the purring of Rosie snuggled into the crook of my knees, the engine of a car starting up next door, the hum of the furnace kicking into action. My dreams incorporated the sounds with less and less imagination until I was finally pretty much in a drowsy state of reality. Then, suddenly,
“The plant workers, while often enthusiastic civic members, can feel more attached to the nuclear industry than to the town they work in, and typically leave with the plant.” Um. Perhaps that's because nuclear industry workers are “attached” to having a job. Framing this as an emotional/loyalty issue is beyond bizarre.
I am disgusted by the decision of Representative Town Meeting regarding the 1-percent local option sales tax. As a town meeting member, I often have a difficult time knowing how best to represent the interests and opinions of my constituents. With the 1-percent tax, however, we had a mandate from those who elected us: they told us on election day that they preferred the sales tax to a greater property-tax burden. Yet a huge majority of my fellow representatives voted...
A mediation session held on March 21 may lead to some modifications to a proposed 84-space park-and-ride lot that the state Agency of Transportation (AOT) wants to build on land it owns near Exit 4 of Interstate 91. Putney resident Daniel Hoviss, who advocates building a smaller, more energy-efficient parking area, said in an email on Monday that the session was “somewhat successful” and that the AOT “were willing to commit to a number of concessions that will make this...
Town meeting members voiced a loud message to the Selectboard: Living in Brattleboro is too expensive. After more than 10 hours in the Brattleboro Union High School gym, voters at the Annual Representative Town Meeting on March 22 had approved 28 of the 30 binding meeting articles. After a long discussion, meeting members defeated enacting a 1-percent local-option tax. They also defeated an article to use $200,000 from the unassigned fund balance, considered surplus funds, to defray property taxes. Discussions...
The Selectboard took up a variety of topics at its March 10 meeting at the town office, including an inquiry from attorneys for the designers of the proposed quarry regarding emergency services at the project site. According to draft meeting minutes, the attorney for Denison Logging and Lumber and Ashfield Stone wanted to know whether whether municipal emergency services will be provided, and whether an access permit is required. An Act 250 municipal impact questionnaire was also included with the...
Although New England Youth Theatre's founder, Stephen Stearns, has stepped down from his role as artistic director, he's still very much committed to helping students learn the art and craft he holds dear. Meanwhile, Sandy Klein, NEYT's costume director, mentor advisor, and head of faculty, has stepped up as interim artistic director pending the search for a permanent replacement, the organization said in a press statement. Stearns, who turns 70 this month, said he is handing off his administrative responsibilities...
With temperatures barely above freezing last Saturday, sugarhouses in southern Vermont were only on their third day of boiling. But John Plummer, third-generation owner of Plummer's Sugarhouse at 2866 Townshend Rd., said this was more like normal than “normal” has been the last few years, recalling the years past when sugaring did not start until the last week in March. However, on the other extreme, he said that two years ago, the family started boiling in mid-February and the season...
Attorneys for both sides in the wrongful termination lawsuit filed by the town's former library director have agreed to postponing further legal action pending the outcome of a meeting with a mediator on April 30. In the meantime, the formal search for a replacement is still technically active but in a state of limbo. A stipulation was filed in Windham County Civil Court on March 24 to postpone the injunction hearing in the case filed by Célina Houlné, former director...