E.B. and I walked out into the darkness armed with two shovels, three flashlights, nine bombs, nine fuses, and a Bic lighter.
This summer, groundhogs staged an occupy movement on our three acres of pasture. It was an occupation I couldn't tolerate.
A few years ago, we were visited by an infestation of coyotes. They yipped and howled through four seasons and dispersed their scat over wide swatches of our driveway. They kept me awake on summer nights, and sometimes I'd leap from my bed, race to an open window, and yell “Will you coyotes ever shut up?”
Now I wondered where the coyotes were when we needed them.
October marks the centenary of Welsh author Dylan Thomas, known to an unusually wide audience for a poet, this despite his death at 39. Guilford will host three commemorative Dylan Thomas events, each sponsored by a different non-profit organization, in October and December. “Guilford is known for its unique...
Next Stage Arts Project continues its literary series, Next Stage Speaks, on Friday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m., with Verandah Porche, hosted by poet Chard DeNiord. There is a suggested donation at the door of $10. Porche, a poet, performer, and writing partner from Guilford, is the author of...
Brattleboro Utilities Division crews will start fall flushing of the town water mains on Thursday, Sept. 25, at 10 p.m. and continue through Saturday, Oct. 11. Some daytime flushing will continue throughout the week of Oct. 13. Water main flushing will occur night and day. Customers are asked to check the flushing schedule closely, as flushing causes water discoloration, low water pressure, and, in some areas, periods of no water. Night flushing will take place from 10 p.m. to 6...
The Windham County Sheriff's Department and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, working with local law enforcement agencies and prevention coalitions throughout Windham County, announce a drug take-back day on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The free, anonymous, no-questions-asked event aims to provide a safe, convenient, and responsible means of drug disposal while educating the general public about the potential for abuse of these medications. During the most recent such event, in April, Americans overall turned in...
It's business license renewal time in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - Anyone providing goods and/or services in Brattleboro, including home businesses and non-profit organizations, needs to have a general business license. For your convenience a form is now available to renew or obtain your 2015 general business license, which is valid until Dec. 31, 2015. You can also choose to be listed in the town's online business directory when you fill out the application. Application can be accessed at www.Brattleboro.org. Once there,
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital hosts “Mediterranean Dining: A Healthy Approach to Living,” sponsored by its Nutrition Services Department and Cardiac Rehabilitation Program. The event, open to the public, is Oct. 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the BMH Brew Barry Conference Center, on the ground level. The event features a dinner of Mediterranean food and a presentation by Judy and Ed Flower, a clinical psychologist and a marriage and family therapist, respectively. Speaking personally and professionally, they will address how chronic illness...
The Vermont Community Garden Network (VCGN) presents the 2014 Fall Grow It! workshops for community and school garden leaders in partnership with Charlie Nardozzi. The workshops provide garden leaders with timely training and networking opportunities at seven locations statewide. The Bellows Falls workshop is presented in partnership with Post Oil Solutions and Food Connects. Now in its second year, VCGN is touring the state to bring people, ideas, and resources together around community and school garden leadership. The fall workshops...
Thousands of Source to Sea Cleanup volunteers have removed tons of trash from the Connecticut River basin, preventing the refuse from reaching Long Island Sound, the Atlantic Ocean, and vast garbage patches floating worldwide. According to Charles J. Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research and Education Institute in California, writing an opinion piece in the Aug. 25 New York Times, plastics rank as a top ocean pollutant. Indeed, he said, large plastic garbage patches called gyres cover as much...
Transitions • Youth Services has hired Kimberley Diemond as Director of Mentoring for the organization. In addition to serving as program manager of Big Brothers Big Sisters, she will also provide oversight of the agency's Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program (RAMP) which serves youth ages 13-17 in need of extra support at three high schools in Windham County. Since 2007, Diemond was employed as a paralegal in the law firm of Bragdon, Dowd & Kossayda, P.C. in Keene, N.H. In...
The Women's Freedom Center presents a free screening of HBO's new feature-length documentary, “Private Violence” at New England Youth Theatre on Friday, Sept. 26, at 6:30 p.m. Kit Gruelle, an advocate featured in the film, will speak at the screening. “Private Violence” is more than a documentary; it's an audience engagement campaign exploring what producers call “a simple but deeply disturbing fact of American life: the most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own home.” Every day...
Morningside Shelter has set its fourth annual Hike for the Homeless fundraiser for Saturday, Oct. 4, on Mount Wantastiquet in Hinsdale, N.H. Start times are 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at the Mountain Road trailhead in Hinsdale (take a left after the second bridge on Route 119 when coming from downtown Brattleboro). Registration for the 10 a.m. start opens at 9:30; registration for the 12:30 p.m. start opens at noon. The rain date is Oct. 5. According to organizers, whether...
Vermont Symphony Orchestra performs at the Bellows Falls Opera House on Friday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m. as part of its annual fall tour. This tour, with stops in eight towns and villages across Vermont, marks the beginning of the 80th anniversary season of the VSO. The program includes a concerto by Dittersdorf for an arguably undersung pair of solo instruments - viola and double bass - and Holst's popular St. Paul's Suite. Beth Wiemann, a Burlington native, joins to...
Many employers offer flexible work schedules and don't know it. That's according to Vermont Assistant Attorney General Julio A. Thompson, who said the challenge is to persuade employers to adopt a new mindset for all employees, not just a select few who are “their stars.” Thompson, director of the AG's civil rights division, along with representatives from the the Vermont Commission on Women (VCW) and the U.S. Department of Labor, met Sept. 19 at Brooks Memorial Library to outline new...
Claire de la Fontaine presents a program of classic French Cabaret music from the 1940s through the 1960s, accompanied by her husband, multi-instrumentalist Ernest Chapman, on Friday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m. Both teach and perform professionally in Nashville and around the country. In her third appearance in this Guilford house concert series, singer, guitarist, and composer Claire de la Fontaine again provides an elegant entrée into the romantic world of French chanson. Her passionate interpretations of classics from Edith...
Author and performer Kali Quinn returns to southeastern Vermont to perform her double-billed solo performances, now a single work. Quinn has blended two of her one-act plays into a unified, one-woman drama she says is a work of creative compassion. On Sept. 25 and 27 at 7 p.m., and on Sept. 28, at 2 p.m., at the New England Youth Theatre (NEYT) in Brattleboro, Quinn unveils the world premiere of her two-act “Overture to a Thursday Morning.” According to Quinn,
Our state owes my Vermont Law School (VLS) colleagues and their co-conspirators hearty thanks for the publicity stunt they staged this week. Although the complaint they filed with the Federal Trade Commission accuses Green Mountain Power of deceptive trade practices, it is the contradiction at the heart of our state's energy policy that they have laid bare. The essence of the complaint, filed by the VLS environmental law clinic on behalf of VLS professor Kevin Jones as well as former...
“Witness to Genocide: Israel/Palestine: A Journey to Peace” will be performed in Putney at the Friends Meeting House on Route 5 on Friday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m. This is a multimedia performance on the narrative of the Jewish Diaspora, the Palestinian people, and the Israeli occupation of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza.) The performance combines stories, music, poetry, photography, and art based on Namaya's story of living and working in Yemen and Morocco, and his travels through Palestine, Israel,
On Saturday, Sept. 27, at 4:30 p.m., there will be a memorial for David R. Koff. A tree-planting follows at 5:30, a potluck at 6, and a mini-festival of four of his short films at the Westminster West Community Church and Library at 7:15. Koff was a frequent sight in Putney, Saxtons River, Bellows Falls, and Westminster West, where he lived with his partner, Crescent Dragonwagon, for the past 12 years. A lifelong progressive activist, he was a documentary filmmaker,
Brattleboro School of Dance, in association with Company of Muses, invites the public to audition for its 2014 production of “The Nutcracker” ballet. Auditions are Sunday, Sept. 28, at 4 p.m. in the Brattleboro School of Dance studio, 22 High St. Youth and adults, especially boys and men, are needed for the production. Participants must be at least 7. Brattleboro School of Dance recommends auditioners arrive early to warm up and complete paperwork, and bring a personal calendar to ensure...
Free local screenings of the “The Anonymous People,” a feature film by producer and director Greg Williams, will be held at the Rockingham Free Public Library on Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m., and at the Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro on Tuesday, Sept. 30, at 7 p.m. The film explores the lives of some of the more than 23 million Americans living in long-term recovery and asks whether the culture of anonymity at the heart of popular 12-step programs has...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present contemporary folk singer/songwriter Patty Larkin at Next Stage on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. Larkin is a phenomenon among singer/songwriters in today's American folk music scene. She has been described as “riveting” by the Chicago Tribune, “hypnotic” by Entertainment Weekly, and a “drop-dead brilliant performer” by Performing Songwriter. Larkin is part of the urban-folk/pop music phenomenon that spun off of the singer/songwriter explosion of the Seventies, reinterpreting traditional folk melodies, rock,
“I'm all right,” Selectboard Chair David Gartenstein said with a shrug and wave of his hand in response to a question from Town Manager Secretary Jan Anderson. Board member John Allen, munching from a bag of microwave popcorn, said, “We need Prozac.” Members of the public entered the room, dressed in their Vermont-casual professional best, anticipating the introduction of the new town manager at Tuesday night's special Selectboard meeting Interim Town Manager Patrick Moreland entered the board room quietly. He...
The Brattleboro Colonels boys' soccer team needed better luck and a win last Friday when they faced Mill River at Sawyer Field. Despite second-half lapses the Colonels got what they needed with a 3-2 win. Brattleboro controlled the flow of play in the first half but only had one goal to show for it when Sam Ogenoff scored from inside the penalty area late in the half. The Colonels added two more goals in the first 10 minutes of the...
When Lachlan Francis, as a sophomore in a speech and argumentation course at Brattleboro Union High School, began to research the John Collins writing program, he could not have foreseen where his curiosity would lead him. “As part of my research,” Francis said, “I talked with Ms. (Teri) Appel, who had been my English teacher twice, as well as with other teachers, and I gained an interest in educational policy.” This interest, and the conversations about policy, continued even after...
Possum Haw, a homegrown bluegrass and country-folk quintet, comes to the Stone Church in Bellows Falls on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m. It's Stone Church Arts' launch of its 11th season of presenting concerts. The Stone Church, Immanuel Episcopal Church, is at 20 Church St. According to Seven Days, listening to lead vocalist Colby Crehan belt out bluegrass and country-folk tunes, “you'd swear you were deep in Appalachia rather than in Vermont.” The band is composed of Crehan on...
The hands of an estimated 400,000 people reached toward a hazy New York sky. Silence settled over the crowd of marchers standing hip-to-hip, crammed along Central Park West from West 59th Street all way down to West 86th Street. An estimated 2,000 Vermonters traveled to the city for Sunday's People's Climate March, whose organizers billed the demonstration as a historic gathering aimed at sending a clear message to world leaders: Climate change is here, it is happening now, and it...
Have you ever wondered how you would survive if you were lost in the woods? Or how you'd manage in a global emergency resulting in food shortages? Combining his love for festivals and the wilderness, Ben Riseman and friends are attempting to address such concerns in a fun and instructive way. This Saturday, A Community Of Resilient Neighbors (ACORN) is bringing to Southern Vermont a family friendly event dedicated to the promotion of an appreciation of nature and the teaching...
For 12 years, the In-Sight Photography Project Exposures Program has brought together youth between the ages of 15 and 21 from around the country for a three-week intensive workshop at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, exploring culture, communication, and photography. The experience raises awareness of cultural issues for all, including the Lakota participants. It's a challenging program for the youth participants as well as for the adult facilitators. It's not a sanitized experience, but full of the magnificence...
Fulcrum Arts is holding an “Opening Bash Pig Roast” on Saturday, Sept. 27, starting at 4 p.m. at its new location on 485 West River Rd. (The old Tom & Sally's building.) Come see their new studio spaces, gallery, and kitchen/bath showroom. Planned are games in the backyard, a bonfire, music, dancing, and eating, and at 8 p.m. a glassblowing demonstration. Fulcrum Arts is the collaboration of ceramist Natalie Blake and glass blower Randi Solin. Previously tenants in the Cotton...