While I spend most of my time looking for local news, it’s impossible to ignore national events and their effect on local Vermonters. The importance of paying attention to all of it was nowhere more evident than this past Friday at Hardwick’s Peace Park where roughly 50 people stood in[Read More…]
Columns
Ranks up there with the stupidest
EAST MONTPELIER – The week just passed in Minneapolis, Minn., has been one of the most watched in perhaps all of American history. Aware that massive protests against the invasion of ICE were likely to occur, every news organization that could afford plane tickets for a film crew sent whatever[Read More…]
Library serves community in many ways
HARDWICK – Our shortest month of the year will be a busy one at the Jeudevine. The event calendar features a variety of presentations, ranging from author discussions to income tax seminars. As I have noted before, a library serves its community in so many different ways. This week, on[Read More…]
Walter P. Slayton (1831–1903)
Walter P. Slayton was born on July 1, 1831, in Calais, the son of Capt. Jera Slayton and Betsey (Kendall) Slayton. At the time of his birth, his father was twenty-seven years old and his mother twenty-six. Walter was born on the Slayton homestead — land first settled by his[Read More…]
100 Years ago in The Hardwick Gazette
Thursday, February 4, 1926 O.W.L. Hike O-w-l spells owl, but that is not exactly what the above letters signify. However, it is the name of the club at the Academy, or composed of students at the Academy, which held a very successful and well-attended hike last Saturday afternoon. The route[Read More…]
What three decades of monitoring birds reveal about changing forests
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – Deep in the Vermont forests, the flute-like call of the Hermit Thrush drifts through the understory and the Blackburnian Warbler’s song carries from the canopy, both reminders of the diversity and complexity woven into Vermont’s forest ecosystems. But this dawn chorus of breeding birds is shifting.[Read More…]
Can old seeds still grow?
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – It’s that time of year: seed packet displays are appearing everywhere, from grocery stores to farm and garden supply centers. Garden catalogs arrive in mailboxes daily, featuring common and exotic vegetable and flower seeds. There’s so much temptation. Most gardeners likely already have a collection of[Read More…]
Mostly light snow with mix of sun and clouds; cold
EAST HARDWICK – It’s hard to summarize the span of events we’ve experienced in the past week around here. Let’s put it in the category of what we’ve come to expect as we progress through Vermont winters: cold and windy; with all roads leading to snow. Perhaps all snow landing[Read More…]
This stuff never gets old
EAST MONTPELIER – One of the advantages of a three-day weekend is that we get an extra day just to talk. It doesn’t matter what else we may be doing, there’s just more time to chat and share points of view on what’s happening around us. Thanks to the wild[Read More…]
Crunching through a forest of needle ice
DUXBURY – On an early winter walk with my three-year-old in a local town forest, we heard our steps crunch on the frozen ground. The dirt of the trail had been pushed up on delicate columns of ice that looked like a pale sugar candy. “Why is it like ribbon[Read More…]
It’s sharp to keep garden tools maintained
MONTPELIER – Home gardeners use a variety of hand tools to achieve their desired results for gardening and landscape maintenance. A quick search at any garden center or online retailer uncovers a vast diversity of equipment, implements, and gear. These include, but are certainly not limited to, shovels and hoes,[Read More…]
Dangerously cold conditions expected this weekend
EAST HARDWICK – After starting out the last forecast period with mild conditions and some rain, precipitation in that storm system wrapped up as snow. Following a day of sunny conditions on Friday, temperatures remained below freezing with incrementally accumulating light snow from the weekend into Monday. An intermittent window[Read More…]
