Archive - Sep 2010
September 23rd
In this week's Patchwork column, Barbara Ganley writes about lengthening the growing season of her vegetables. Bill Roper's accompanying recipe won't get you any edible results, but with any luck it will help you get more edibles from of your garden.
You can probably imagine the weekends I’ve had as Barbara’s infrastructure partner this summer! Luckily I enjoy the outdoors and the nonstop construction projects, and I sure have eaten well.
I know, I know, it’s that time of year again — the first string of geese flew overhead as I thinned lettuce this morning; this evening as I picked beans, light slanted long shadows across the field and the air took a sudden chill. There’s no mistake about fall’s inexorable approach. No calendar needed, nor sounds of football game, marching band, school bell. It’s in the sunflowers heavy with seed flopping over beneath the weight of feasting squirrels. It’s in the garden chatter turning all chickadee, blue jay, goldfinch.
After the last posted run, which featured running commentary on the Robert Frost Cabin and Robert Frost Trail, it only seemed fitting to continue on with the Frost theme with a run up to the summit of Robert Frost Mountain. While many Middlebury-ites know of, and have explored the former, relatively few know of his namesake summit. Where exactly is Robert Frost Mountain? When looking towards the mountains from town, Robert Frost Mountain is the rounded summit high point just a few miles north of the East Middlebury and Rt. 125.
VERGENNES — On Tuesday morning before the Vermont Board of Education honored Vergennes Union High School middle school teacher Jennifer Lawson as the 2011 Vermont Teacher of the Year, last year’s teacher of the year, Craig Divis of Bellows Falls, took to the podium in the VUHS auditorium.
“The single greatest factor in student success is a quality teacher,” Divis told the all-school VUHS assembly. “We’ve all had that great teacher who has inspired us, challenged us to be our very best. And as educators we strive to be that teacher.”
ADDISON COUNTY — Addison County human services providers are using superlatives these days in describing the state of food and fuel assistance resources available for needy families.
Only in this case, the superlatives are being used in a negative sense.
“I have been here 10 years, and it has never been nearly this bad,” Helping Overcome Poverty’s Effects (HOPE) Executive Director Jeanne Montross said on Monday in describing the emptiness of her agency’s emergency food shelf.
MIDDLEBURY — It was 38 years ago that contractor Dutton Smith Sr., unable to secure a permit from the town of Middlebury for a development proposal, wrote a farcical play summing up his frustrations.
He aptly titled it “The Permit,” and it played to 21 enthusiastic crowds before the script was shelved.
MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury Development Review Board (DRB) on Wednesday denied the Fenn family’s proposal to locate a 16-acre gravel pit on a portion of a 70-acre parcel off Route 116, around 180 feet north of its intersection with Quarry Road.
After several months of elevated discussion on serious policy issues and sound solutions during the Democratic gubernatorial primary race, the contest between Democrat nominee Sen. Peter Shumlin and Republican nominee Brian Dubie has been reduced to pot shots, distortions and unfounded charges.
