Summer, 2008

From The Editor ~ In the Back Meadow

One of the blessings of living here is that when a child is getting restless, television isn't your only option. You can say, simply, "Go outside and play." You probably won't even get an argument.

When my children were younger, they spent hours and hours in the meadow behind our house. They would head out with the dogs trailing behind them and be gone, sometimes, all day. The meadow is small by literal measurements. Just three or four acres up against a smaller woodlot that borders a small stream. But in their imagination, it was vast and it was their realm.

We don't mow the meadow until some time after the 4th of July, so there are wildflowers to be picked and my daughters would bring me endless bouquets of Indian paintbrushes, black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne's lace. There are interesting creatures to be captured, if possible, and studied. Salamanders and toads and even the occasional snake. What can't be caught can still be observed with the fascination that is part of a child's makeup. My girls would report, breathlessly, on their sightings of groundhogs, rabbits, deer and foxes. That meadow, in summer, was their Wild Kingdom and there were no commercials. » read more

The Topless Boys of Summer

It's not about the horsepower, the shiny chrome, the leather seats, the automotive legacies, or even the memories of their youth long lost--- it's the romance of the road. » read more

THE TOPLESS BOYS OF SUMMER

By Anita Rafael

Forty-three years ago, American auto manufacturers had every reason to celebrate. It was 1965 and that year Detroit rolled a whopping half-million convertibles off its production lines, hot new cars that blue-jeaned young buyers snapped up the minute they hit the showrooms. In addition, U.S. dealers tempted motorists even more by importing record numbers of hip roadster "ragtops" from England and Europe. America's love affair with the convertible car had begun. » read more

BIG TIME DOG

By Geoffrey Norman
Photography by Hubert Schriebl

In the entire history of the American field trials for the Brittany breed there has never been a dog like Tom Ettinger's Roy.

When he was growing up around Weston, there were plenty of places where Tom Ettinger could hunt birds. His father, Churchill Ettinger, was a well-known artist and a sportsman whose Golden Retriever named Troubadour, was one of his subjects and a fine, close-working grouse and woodcock dog. Troubadour was what is known among upland hunters as a "flushing dog." Meaning, that the dog does not go motionless when it picks up the scent of a bird. That would be a "pointing dog." One that waits for the hunter to come in and force the bird to fly. » read more

SOLARFEST

By Betsy Shaw Mackenzie
Photography by James H. Schriebl

We pulled into the SolarFest parking lot, otherwise known as a horse pasture, at Forget-Me-Not Farm with minutes to spare. Theater in the Woods, a traditional highlight of the festival, was due to start in five minutes. And we still had to get to the woods.

I jogged across the meadow as fast as a mother with a child bouncing up and down in a backpack on her back dares. We arrived at the site of the first scene-the play moves around to several different "sets" while the audience follows-threaded our way through the audience and found a mossy stump on which to sit. There, in the middle of the forest, the green, leafy canopy leaking strands of golden sunshine onto our faces, we were richly entertained. » read more

OLD HOME DAY

by Susanne Washburn
Photgraphy by Hubert Schriebl

Who doesn't love a Vermont parade? Drums and horns and stand-out costumes, imaginative floats and siren-winding fire trucks, bagpipers in kilts, Shriners driving tractors, the American Legion sporting flags, kids on decorated trikes, pounds of candy tossed out in fistfuls. And every year a different theme.

For Rupert Old Home Day last summer, it was-counter-intuitively-Christmas in August. Signs on the sides of a float carrying a bearded Santa in swim trunks seated in a beach chair under a sun umbrella proclaimed, "Closed 'Til December 25th." On board too: a number of other North Pole denizens dressed for a dip. Rolling the route also was a 10-foot-tall snowball propelled by someone labeled "Old Lady Winter"-with the look and air of a petite polar bear. One girl paraded on skis (on wheels). Another young winter sportsman did his snowboard act (via skateboard) on a broad, steep, snow-capped mountain slide pitched from the back of a truck. To be sure, an Arctic Cat ATV was on the scene, pulling another chilly-temp-time float. » read more

BUCKO'S BACKYARD - SORTING FLIES

For those of you who don't understand how a magazine works, it's basically an exercise in smoke and mirrors. You are presently reading this summer column, which under normal circumstances would regale you with wondrous tales of all things green, summer and Vermont. The reality is, due to the way magazines are managed and constructed, and, more importantly printed and distributed, I am writing this column while locked in an ice-covered house, tucked deep in the coldest, darkest heart of winter. As such, inspiration is a bit hard to come by, for I am staring out the window at a landscape of stark white, streaked with the dark patterns of black leafless trees. It is beautiful, there is no doubt, but there is nothing warm in it. Now is when I should be writing next winter's column, but alas I am not that organized. » read more