A free Spring CSA, Farming and Gardening Showcase on Saturday, April 18, at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, 157 Main St.
From 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., CSA farmers along with other farm, garden and food vendors will exhibit and sell their offerings.
Members or subscribers of CSAs (community-supported agricultural) ventures pay at the onset of the growing season for a share of the anticipated harvest; once harvesting begins, they receive weekly distributions of vegetables, fruit, meat, cheese, eggs, or other products depending on the farm.
The following CSAs and vendors are among those featured at the event: Dwight Miller and Son Orchards, Full Plate Farm, Goats Rock Dairy Farm, New Leaf CSA, Phoenix Farm, Sweet Mornings Farm, Wild Carrot Farm, Sugar Bob's Finest Kind, Vermont Victory Greenhouses, Laughing Moon Chocolates, and Cai's Dim Sum Teahouse and Catering.
Music compositions by fifth graders Darius Parker and Zoe Robb from The Grammar School in Putney were selected to be performed live by professional musicians at the Opus 30 concert on April 29 in Randolph. The concert will feature compositions by 25 students throughout the state. For more information...
'Trail Talk' for I-91 Brattleboro Bridge Project is April 18 BRATTLEBORO - The PCL+FIGG Team will conduct the next on-site “trail talk” for the Public on Saturday, April 18. There has been a lot of progress at the Interstate 91 Brattleboro Bridge Project site, which will be shared with...
The Pinnacle Association has four programs scheduled for the weekend of April 25-26. On Saturday April 25, Catherine Cooper-Ellis and Bill Clark will lead an informational walk to a vernal pool off Bemis Hill Road in Westminster West. These landlocked forest pools are the unlikely refuges and short-lived nurseries for amazing creatures - such as Fingernail Clams, Fairy Shrimp, and Spotted Salamanders - which have adapted to live and breed there. This guided walk is a good opportunity to see...
Why aren't all the decisions we make based upon the future needs of our grandchildren? To ensure their survival and well-being? At the most recent meeting of the Bellows Falls Village Trustees, a citizen stated that Monsanto's Roundup was used last year on the grounds surrounding the Bellows Falls Middle School. Roundup? Really? After all the scientific research available on this toxic product? A very insightful report from the journal Interdisciplinary Toxicology posted on Mother Earth News connects increased use...
I appreciated Paul Millman's article. It is refreshing to hear a businessperson call for paid sick time for workers and to support legislative mandates. He is absolutely correct that unless we take some of these measures, we will not be able to attract the educated workforce we need in our state and, indeed, in our nation. I would like to push his argument even further. Our peer nations, especially those in the European Union - representing nearly 30 countries and...
Brattleboro comedians Jay Gelter and Ben Stockman are taking their radio show, Real People with Jay and Ben, out of the recording studio and onto the stage on Friday, April 24, at 8 p.m., at the Hooker-Dunham Theater to benefit WVEW, Brattleboro Community Radio. Inspired by comedy podcasts like Comedy Bang! Bang! and The Dead Author's Podcast, the show features Gelter and Stockman interviewing the “real people” of Brattleboro, who aren't real at all, but rather bizarre characters in a...
Births • In London, England (Kings College Hospital), March 20, 2015, a daughter, Sybilla Alana Lazoi Distler, to Aaron Distler and Sandra Lazoi of London; granddaughter to Arlene Distler of Brattleboro and the late Alan Distler, and Renna Gabriela and Luigi Lazoi of Lecce, Italy. Transitions • Angela Thomas, DPT, has joined Brattleboro Memorial Hospital's Rehabilitation Services staff. Thomas just moved to the Brattleboro area after spending 20 years living in the southwestern United States. She holds a Doctorate of...
The Brattleboro Union High School class of 1964 has announced the availability of a new scholarship, in memory of the 40 classmates who have died. The scholarship of up to $2,500 will be awarded on an annual basis for as long as funds allow. Awards are non-renewable. “Fundraising for this scholarship has been going on since our 45th class reunion,” says Raymond Puffer, chair of the class scholarship committee, “and we are very pleased that more than 50 percent of...
There was still snow on the hillsides and in the woods around Hadley Field in Westminster last Saturday morNing. It was mostly cloudy and in the low 50s with an occasional sunny break, and a stiff breeze blew from the northwest. As far as Bellows Falls tennis coach Dave Chesley was concerned, it was a perfect day for tennis. “We're just glad to be outside,” he said. The BF girls' tennis team was playing host to Brattleboro, the first match...
When Bill Holiday first started seeing articles in the Reformer about Vietnam, it was probably after June 1965. Charles Armour, Mike Canova, Jack Gouger, and I had graduated that month, and 10 days later we were standing tall on the infamous “yellow footprints” at Parris Island. That is where we first learned that there were two kinds of Marine: those who were in Vietnam and those who were going! I guess we were naive back then. Growing up in Brattleboro...
Every great social movement “begins with a set of ideas validated, internalized, and then shared and amplified through media, grassroots organizations, and thousands, even millions, of conversations,” David Korten wrote in Yes! Magazine in 2011. “A truth strikes a resonant chord, we hear it acknowledged by others, and we begin to discuss it with friends and associates. The new story spreads out in multiple ever-widening circles that begin to connect and intermingle.” That was the spirit - post-Ferguson and the...
On April 20, the Brattleboro Development Review Board will consider an application by the Brooks House developers to close the Harmony Lot/High Street driveway to vehicles. I write in an effort to call attention to this ill-conceived plan. First, some background. It seems undeniable that the Harmony Lot High Street driveway was designed and built to allow vehicles to pass. Since I moved to Brattleboro 33 years ago, this driveway has always been used by vehicles, and it seems likely...
Landmark College presents an evening of comedy with You Can't Take It With You, a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. The play will be performed at the Greenhoe Theater at Landmark College on Friday, April 17, and Saturday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. The theater is located in the Fine Arts Building on the Landmark College campus, at 19 River Road South. Admission is free, and the public is welcome. The play takes place in...
In the late 1960s, urban members of the counterculture came to Vermont to build communes, grow their own food, and pursue alternative work lives. Guilford was a center of this back-to-the-land activity and a source of creative energy. Packer Corners Road and the surrounding community were home to young actors, musicians, singers, writers, artists, sculptors, carpenters, and costume makers. Members of Total Loss Farm, the commune on Packer Corners Road, formed the Monteverdi Players and, with creative director John Carroll,
At the Dummerston regular Selectboard meeting on April 1, what normally would have been a fairly straightforward procedure - get a new dump truck -ۥ hit a frost heave. Road Foreman Lee Chamberlin reported receiving three bids for the town's new dump truck, but one of them, from Westminster's L & B Truck Services, came in late. L & B had initially sent in a timely bid on a tandem truck, rather than the single-axle truck Dummerston needs. When alerted...
Award-winning comedic storytellers Kevin Gallagher, Cindy Pierce and Sue Schmidt know how to spin a yarn or three. You can expect an evening of memorable tales when the seasoned performers join forces onstage in “Are We There Yet?” Taking turns sharing anecdotes from life's bumpy roads, the trio interweaves individual recollections into a hilarious and poignant whole. Narratives from different periods of their lives cover where Gallagher, Pierce, and Schmidt came from, and, reveal moments of triumph and heartbreak -
The United Way of Windham County invites the public to an innovative event, Handbags for HOPE, to be held on Thursday, May 7, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the VFW Hall on Black Mountain Road. This fun, ladies' event will feature a silent and live auction featuring Jean Gilbert as auctioneer. Handbags for HOPE will benefit the United Way's Fund for Quality Early Education. More than 60 bags will be up for auction, including designer bags by Kate Spade,
April is National Poetry Month and Write Action will celebrate during the April 17 third Friday Open Reading at the “Bluedot Studio” in the second floor of the Hooker-Dunham building at 7:30 p.m. Writers are encouraged to bring their own original work. Write Action asks participants to limit their reading to 7 minutes. For this Open Reading, readers may read poetry only, unless there is extra time at the end. Appreciators of poetry who do not write are invited to...
From their small, grape-colored home on South Main Street, the non-profit Brattleboro Area DropIn Center provides a variety of services to locals seeking basic needs such as food and shelter. The Drop In Center offers case management, a day shelter, a year-round food shelf, job referrals, advocacy, and housing assistance programs. In addition, it operates an overnight shelter and evening meals during the winter months in Brattleboro's First Baptist Church on Main Street. Operating since 1988, the Drop In Center...
Fabric, clay, and mixed media artist Sharon Myers will present an exhibit of her latest work, “The Wedding Gown Project,” on Sunday, April 19, from 2 to 5 p.m., at the C.F. Church building on 90 Flat St. (look for door 7). Myers is pursuing an MFA at Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk, Maine, and the exhibit is her master's thesis project. Although she has been a quilter and weaver for many years, Myers has said she wanted to...
In response to resident Wayne Wagenbach's dismay over the failure of Treasurer Anita M. Coomes to deposit three years of dog license fees [“Audit finds three years of dog license payments,” Town & Village, Jan. 28], and Wagenbach's urging of the Selectboard to invite Coomes to their April 8 regular meeting for an on-the-record chat, Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard asked Coomes to appear. Unfortunately, illness precluded Coomes from attending, but Stoddard reported having a conversation with the treasurer to nail...
As part of the town's ongoing process to implement a Hazard Mitigation Plan ["Meeting set to discuss proposed hazard mitigation plan,” Town & Village, April 8], Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard has been working to amass a Community Resilience Team. For the Hazard Mitigation Plan [HMP], people are needed to help identify hazards and complete smaller projects, and Stoddard says that's where the Community Resilience Team comes in. She mentioned recent appointees Amelia Struthers and state Rep. Mike Mrowicki, D-Putney. Stoddard...
Do you know what threats, both global and local, face our forests and our forest economy? Are you concerned that climate change and invasive species could change the composition of our forests as we know them? Is Windham County really the “Timber Capital of Vermont?” The Windham Regional Commission's recently-released report, “Landscape Based Forest Stewardship,” hopes to answer questions such as these, including what strategies exist to preserve the region's forestlands. The report, available at www.windhamregional.org/forestry, is the result of...
It is with deep regret that I resign from my position as a member of the Vernon Selectboard. The current climate in which the board is forced to work has become very difficult. As a professional, I am used to working in situations where people treat one another with respect and dignity. Although I have tremendous respect for the members with whom I have served and the job they have done for the town, I can no longer sit at...
New water regulations, energy issues, property taxes, education reform, shrinking a $100 million budget gap... Between meetings with economic development organizations at The Brattleboro Retreat, Speaker of the House Shap Smith on April 13 ticked through the issues tackled by the House in the waning days of the legislative session. “I feel good about how the House has handled many of the issues,” he said. Smith said he sees legislators as having a renewed sense of working together this session,
Despite a reduction of $37,506, some voters remain skeptical of the School Board's attempts to make tough financial decisions. Vernon voters narrowly defeated the $4.4 million school budget by Australian ballot on March 3. When a recount upheld the result, the School Board sharpened its pencils. The School Board presented a revised budget of $4.37 million to an audience of approximately 40 voters in the first of two public hearings on April 13. Reductions appeared in a handful of line...
Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls welcomes Donald Saaf on Saturday, April 18 at 11 a.,. to read from and discuss his newest children's book, The ABC Animal Orchestra. Aardvarks play accordions. Butterflies strum banjos. Chimpanzees crash cymbals. Preschoolers can learn their ABCs with the fresh, alliterative text and the charming illustrations of animal friends playing music with instruments from around the world in the newest book by this Vermont author, illustrator, artist and musician. Saaf has illustrated many highly...
Ten years ago, when The African Children's Choir gave a concert in Barry, Wales, the young Emily Gronow got so excited that she wanted to join the choir. She didn't. However, the choir came back again last March, and she fell in love with it all over again. If Gronow was now too old to become a singing member of the choir, she found that she could be part of the organization in another way, as its tour leader. Because...
Wendy Redlinger's Jazz Soirre will host the Bob Stabach 4tet on Thursday, April 23, at 7 p.m., preceded by a potluck dinner at 6 p.m. The 4tet includes Eugene Uman, piano; Dave Picchi, bass; Jon Fisher, drums; and Bob Stabach on sax. In this performance, the 4tet salutes the best selling 1959 jazz album of all time, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, regarded by many critics as the greatest and most influential album in all of jazz. This masterpiece is...
Students in the Windham Regional Career Center chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America recently netted awards at the 2015 Spring Leadership Conference in Burlington. While at the conference, the 28 local Career Center students attended workshops and participated in performance events, competing against FBLA students from other career centers throughout Vermont. This local chapter won the scrapbook award, the poster contest, and was honored for being the largest chapter in the state this year, with 100 members. They...
These spring scenes come to us via “Quotidiously,” by Rich Holschuh of Brattleboro, who describes the photo blog as “a casual repository of things encountered nearby, whether at home or wandering about.” As a personal challenge, Holschuh takes all his images with his iPhone camera and presents them as-is - “no filters, apps, or editing, except for a rare crop,” he writes. You can find the blog, with photos of all seasons in and around Brattleboro and the region, at...
“We believe pretty strongly that learning happens in the real world,” says Tim Hayes, who, along with Rachel Boyden, co-teaches junior high at the Marlboro School. This spring, the small public school will send every one of its 22 junior high students to the cloud forest and coffee farms of Monteverde, Costa Rica, to research and explore this thesis: “To Monteverde, How are we connected? Is ours a symbiotic or parasitic relationship (and what does that mean anyway?)” notes the...
A few weeks ago if you had asked Marguerite Dooley what she would be doing during her summer vacation, she might have answered that she would be working in Boston or Providence. Instead, she'll be coming home to Brattleboro to implement a project in a community that previously gave her so much. This is a lot to consider for a college student, but Dooley is used to the challenges of independence. At 16, she was learning how to lease apartments...
It has sure been a long, cold winter here in the Northeast. It has seemed as if the snow would never end. The snow piles have been shrinking day by day here, and I even have a few brave snowdrops blooming. As the snow goes, I sometimes help nature along by shoveling off some of the large piles from the shade and putting them where the snow has already melted in the sun. After all, snow is known as “the...
Knock, knock. -Who's there? -Spring. -Spring who? Ahh, springtime in Vermont. 'Round here, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” applies to April; March heads out as a slightly smaller lion. Forget climate change; this winter resembled climate derange. Vermont spring is messy: white snow becomes brown mud; icy roads convert to cratered potholes; melting roofs cause soggy Sheetrock. Still, you'd be hard-pressed to find even a grumpy New Englander complaining about these first signs of spring after the...
An oven fire ignited by what firefighters described as “paper and other materials” brought emergency responders to Main Street on Monday afternoon. The fire in an apartment located at 117 Main St., took place at about 4:30 p.m., and created a foul odor that lingered despite the afternoon's strong breeze. According to Capt. Ron Hubbard, a tenant had forgotten about papers stored inside the stove when she turned on the appliance. “You'd be surprised what people store in their ovens,”
Singer-songwriter Eli Conley, touring the East Coast with his band, will visit Brattleboro on April 22 for a performance at The Root Social Justice Center. Conley, a native of rural Virginia who now lives in the Bay Area of California, “crafts modern day folk songs for misfits,” according to his press release. His music connects the gap between city- and country-boy -ۥ think early Elton John, especially Tumbleweed Connection -ۥ by merging progressive and traditional themes with roots-based instrumentation. Folk...
The days are getting longer and warmer, the snow is melting, and soon we will have April showers - all signs that spring is on the way. But ice jams, snow melt, and showers also raise the level of our streams and rivers and turn our thoughts to the risk flooding and the damage that might result. With funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the Shumlin administration, led by the Department of Housing and Community Development, other state agencies,
On Saturday, April 18, Friends of Music at Guilford presents its celebration of Women in Music, its signature annual fundraiser. Patrons will enjoy a buffet of hors d'oeuvres and salads between 6 and 7 p.m. This year's concert then features vocalist Jessica Gelter and pianist Ken Olsson in a centennial tribute to legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf (1915-1963). An array of desserts prepared by area restaurant and bakery chefs follows. Edith Piaf, who was “discovered” as a street singer while still...
The Meeting Waters YMCA faced a difficult choice last year: what to do about its building, a former Methodist meetinghouse whose roots in the community were planted in 1835. For years, the organization had been looking for a way to shed its longtime headquarters at 66 Atkinson St., which was no longer essential to its mission and was prohibitively expensive to heat and maintain. In the end, the YMCA donated the former Methodist church in January to a newly formed...
Mud and buds and farmers. And yes, it has arrived. -Allyson Wendt * * * From Brattleboro's own Rosenschontz: “Robins return, all the birds sing.” -Paul Burton * * * I still have to go with seeing a robin. I have not seen one up in Richmond yet, but we're going to have temperatures in the 60s next week! Yay! -Nancy Gates Gauthier * * * Flocks of robins plucking worms from the ground, and the first strike of a...
The first warm days of spring are among the sweetest of the year. One does not stay indoors willingly. Imagine how you'd feel about such a day if you had spent the winter in a dark hut of mud and cattails with a bunch of damp muskrats. If I were a muskrat, I'd certainly be ready to stretch my legs, have a little fun, and put as much distance between myself and my housemates as possible. Judging from the muskrat...
On April 18, the Vermont Jazz Center welcomes the Holopohonor Sextet, a group of young jazz musicians. The group includes local pianist Miro Sprague; Josh Joshnson on alto saxophone; Eric Miller, trombone; Diego Urbano, vibraphone; Dave Robaire, bass; and Jonathan Pinson on drums. Sprague connected with the other five musicians of Holophonor while attending the Thelonious Monk Institute's two-year graduate school, the world's most selective jazz studies program led by chair and primary teacher Herbie Hancock. For each graduating class,
There is no guarantee that savings or academic improvement will result from eliminating some or many of our small schools and transitioning our supervisory unions into supervisory districts, as proposed by the education reform bill under consideration. The assumption that money will be saved is further undermined by Agency of Education data showing that five of the 11 existing supervisory districts, such as this bill promotes, spend above the state average, while half of the K-12 districts operating within supervisory...