Spring, 2009

By  Geoffrey Norman

My wife once took some houseguests from Manhattan—quintessential New Yorkers—on a walk along a trail behind our house.  When they returned to the house, the woman was distressed because she had lost her glasses. “They’re prescription,” she said, “and my spares are back at the apartment.”

How would she possibly survive not being able to read the Sunday Times?

“Where did she lose them?” I said to my wife.

She described the spot on the trail that I passed every day when I went running with my dog.

“I’ll go up and get them,” I said.

“But it’s almost dark,” the woman’s husband said.

“I’ll take a flashlight.” » read more

By Paul Fersen

Consider yourself lucky. You live in Vermont, a bastion of hardscrabble self-sufficiency. Now that the bubble has burst and the portfolio that brought you here isn’t worth spit, it’s time for you to reevaluate your circumstances. Fortunately you were lucky in choosing Vermont as a haven back when things were good and you figured your bonuses would continue to flow ad infinitum. What once was a symbol of status may well become a symbol of refuge. » read more

Until last spring, the Vermont sugaring ritual was something I understood and admired from afar.  I’d gone out to watch people empty buckets and bring in the sap, then stood around a large pan, surrounded by steam watching it boil down.  But I was merely an interested observer, beguiled by the charm of it all.  I made all the appropriate remarks and was given a small bottle of syrup as a reward.

I’d watched; but I didn’t understand.

Not, that is, until last spring when my daughter and her husband decided to make syrup.  And why not?  They had moved into a new house.  There were three or four dozen maple trees on the property and, more importantly, a small sugar house that hadn’t been used for years but still worked.  It was wood fired, also a good thing since my son-in-law is what everyone in the family calls a “tree guy.”

More precisely, Mike is an arborist.  He went to school (Paul Smith in the Adirondacks) to learn all the skills—academic and practical.  He knows all the local trees by their Latin names and he can also climb them and go to work with a chain saw.  He loves what he does. » read more

Lindsay & Benjamin CooleyBy Kristin McDonald
Photography by James Schriebl

When planning their weddings, most brides-to-be worry about the details—colors, flowers, hairstyle and accessories, bridesmaids’ dresses, headpiece or veil, horse and buggy or limousine. But not Lindsay Oglesbee.  When she was planning her August ’08 wedding to Benjamin Cooley of Londonderry, her priorities were simple and clear: invite only closest family and friends, and have it in a spectacular setting.

Lindsay is from the south—Lafayette, Louisiana, with its own particular deep traditions surrounding weddings. “But if we had had it there,” she says, “it would’ve had to be a big wedding, because we couldn’t leave anyone out.” So she and Ben began to plan weddings out-of-state. “We planned about ten, I think,” says Ben. “We thought about New Orleans; Sea Island, Georgia; Hilton Head, South Carolina; the Caribbean….but Lindsay kept saying she couldn’t picture her wedding in those places. So one by one they were crossed off the list.” » read more

By Anita Rafael

Raise your hand if you know the difference between an English barn and Yankee barn. How about a bank barn? Would you know a crib barn if you saw one? All over Vermont, including up and down the winding back roads and hidden farm lanes in and around Stratton, eager volunteers are everywhere, ticking off checkboxes on special architectural survey sheets while learning to inventory and identify barns and outbuildings. » read more

by Kathleen James
Photography by Hubert Schriebl

If granola were the subject of a blockbuster film—an unlikely prospect, but for the sake of discussion—the Avlon sisters of Manchester and Dorset could be the leading ladies. And it wouldn’t be a regular movie. No way. This flick would be IMAX, Technicolor and Surround Sound. And you might want 3D glasses and subtitles, because the sisters all talk at the same time and come at you from all sides. I mean this in the best possible way; an audience with the Avlon sisters is highly entertaining. » read more

By Will Riseley
Photography by Hubert Schriebl

You can’t really beat the view from the office.”  The words couldn’t have rung more true as Stratton’s Assistant Ski Patrol Director Chris “Squirrel” Schilling and I stood on Frank’s Fall Line looking northeast at the Green Mountains and the distant beginnings of the Whites.  The day was mild, the sun shining; a couple of aesthetically pleasing clouds sat above the horizon while the first skiers and riders waited to board the lifts.  It was a perfect early March day that would make the casual observer think that the Ski Patrol had the easiest job in the world. » read more