by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – Most of the time, living as we do at the business end of a climatological bowling alley, we watch our weather approach from the west. This time it was coming at us from the southeast. For over a week we’d been watching the progress[Read More…]
Columns
Cliffs Host Varied Flora and Fauna
by Susan Shea RANDOLPH – On a recent hike up Eagle Mountain in Milton, we climbed to a ledge overlooking Lake Champlain. Turkey vultures soared overhead, tilting back and forth on the breeze. A sheer cliff dropped to the forest below us, a lush variety of plants clinging to its[Read More…]
Gardening Better As We Age
by Henry Homeyer CORNISH FLAT, N.H. – As a Certified Senior Citizen I sometimes wonder if I am too ambitious in my garden. I have about an acre of gardens with 200 or more kinds of flowers and a good-size vegetable garden. These gardens please me greatly, and I visit[Read More…]
I Wasn’t Quite Ready for Idyls
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – During the 1960s I taught high school English in a riverside village on the west side of Lake Champlain. Looking back, I can see that the situation for our small family was idyllic. But in my early thirties, I wasn’t quite ready for idyls;[Read More…]
Cooking and Gardening is a Marriage Made in Heaven
by Henry Homeyer CORNISH FLAT, N.H. – I love to cook, and I love to eat. I got started gardening in the vegetable garden more than 70 years ago, in part, because everyone I knew loved to eat homegrown vegetables: raw in the garden, fresh in the kitchen or cooked[Read More…]
The Life of a Snapping Turtle
by Anna Morris QUECHEE — Until 65 million years ago, huge reptiles dominated our planet, and every summer I think they might be making a comeback. The sight of a snapping turtle hauling herself onto a sunny log or lifting her incredible bulk on mud-colored legs always fills me with[Read More…]
Houseplants for a Dorm Room
by Deborah J. Benoit, Extension Master Gardener, University of Vermont NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Plants may not be the first consideration in adding a personal touch to a dorm room, but they will add a touch of color and improve the mood of even the drabbest space. What makes a[Read More…]
What Could Possibly go Wrong?
by Willem Lange EAST MONTPELIER – Wednesday, 7/30, 10 p.m. Cold, rainy, windy. Still wind-bound. Blew hard all day. Fished up and down the canyon with Baird, slept, read. Can’t move till the wind dies. Bob’s barometer still dropping. Half the fuel is gone, and we’ve seen barely a pencil[Read More…]
Native Shrubs are Food and Shelter
by Bonnie Kirn Donahue, Extension Master Gardener, University of Vermont NORTHFIELD – Adding shrubs to your landscape can have many benefits. After being planted, they can live for many years. They visually ground gardens, adding structure throughout the year. Perhaps most importantly, they can provide food and shelter for small[Read More…]
With Hydrangeas, You Always Win
by Henry Homeyer CORNISH FLAT, N.H. – Unlike the games of chance at our local fair, you always win when you buy a hydrangea. They generally bloom their fool heads off every year, even if you have poor soil and a poor track record in the garden. When I was[Read More…]
Dogwood Sawfly are Lookalike Caterpillars
by Ann Hazelrigg BURLINGTON – You may think that caterpillars were devouring your dogwoods this year, but these lookalike larvae are actually sawflies in the order Hymenoptera and are related to bees, wasps and ants. (True caterpillars are the larvae of moths and butterflies and are in the insect order[Read More…]
Chrysalis Surprise Produces a Parasitoid Wasp
by Rachel Sargent Mirus DUXBURY – A caterpillar eats and eats, becomes a chrysalis, and after a period of metamorphosis emerges as a beautiful butterfly, except sometimes, it doesn’t quite work that way. Occasionally, while sitting on my deck, I spot smallish, orange butterflies landing on our hop plants. Their[Read More…]
