2006

Buckoby Paul Fersen

It’s autumn. The trees are slowly suffocating their leaves in the rubescent ritual that is foliage and the wind whispers the first hint of brutality. For the hunter, it’s wait’s end. For the dogs in our lives, it’s show time.

Pickett, my chocolate Labrador will be four this season, having first opened his eyes in July of ‘02, now already a veteran of three seasons. The first time I saw him was the day I picked him up at a kennel in Colorado in mid-September having sent a deposit sight unseen on pedigree and parent’s pictures alone. His first act for me was to retrieve a toy mouse and bring it proudly back to my feet, drop it and look up with the expectation of yet another round. Sold.
Now to get him home. I was not about to stick him in the cargo hold. I found out that given his size, he could ride with me in an under-the-seat kennel. Fortunately he was too young to understand these kennels are generally reserved for the use of well-coiffed and bejeweled women with smarmy, aloof cats or little dogs that yip. Dogs shouldn’t yip. Pickett came through the experience unscathed and with his hunting genes in tact. On a side note, if I ever need to find another woman in my life, I will simply go to an airport with an 8-week old Lab puppy. As my son so ably puts it, “a sick chick magnet”. Translated that means I was surrounded by adoring women the minute I hit the door with Pickett in tow and the flight attendant even moved me to an empty seat in first class. His first day he was already taking care of his master. » read more

The Crowby Geoffrey Norman

photography by Hubert Schriebl

If people had wings and
bore black feathers,
few of them would be clever enough to be crows.

It was one of those mornings in mountains. No wind, with the temperature in the twenties and the sun coming up out of a flawlessly clear sky. The stillness was so complete that the world felt fragile. Take a wrong step, speak above a whisper, and the whole thing might shatter like glass. » read more

Newfane Village Green: by Hubert SchrieblBy Louise Jones

Photographs by Hubert Schriebl

Once land used for communal livestock grazing, village greens today are places of community celebration One of the predominant stereotypes of New England villages is the verdant village green bordered by white clapboard buildings. The green is a relict of the ancient English village common, which was land used by the community for pasture. But usually not so in Vermont. Jan Albers, in her excellent book Hands on the Land: A History of the Vermont Landscape, explains that, “The land speculation that characterized Vermont settlement meant that common land was seldom set aside for grazing...Many Vermont greens are products of the early nineteenth century...often developed on part of the church lot and used as landscape features from the start, rather than...as communal livestock grazing areas.” There are many Vermont villages where sentimental travelers can discover this ideal, but they will more likely find bake sales and concerts than grazing cattle. » read more

Charles OrvisThe Orvis Company Turns 150 Years Old By Fredericka Templeton Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, the Orvis Company is not only the oldest mail-order business in the country, it is one of a handful of American companies founded before the Civil War still in operation. But unlike companies such as Lord & Taylor and Brooks Brothers, which pre-date Orvis but were all long ago absorbed by large multinational corporations, Orvis has been owned by only three families, all of whom loved and lived the sporting life. » read more

Kayak: by Hubert Schriebl I felt like Captain Hazelwood. Except I was quite sober. But I was still polluting the environment with the fumes and noise of a two-stroke engine. And rather than reefs, my main concern was avoiding Lake St. Catherine's forests of Eurasian milfoil, tendrils of which threatened to wrap around the propeller. Weaving out of the bay, I suddenly saw a duck off the bow. "Right!" said my friend Kim, pointing toward the bird. "No! Left! ... Wait, right! Stop!" Ahhhhhh! My palm began to sweat on the throttle. The duck wisely took to the skies. » read more

Norcross-West Quarry: by Andrus BowenBy Susanne Washburn
Photography courtesy of Andrus L. Bownen

At the turn of the 20th century, the name Dorset was synonymous with marble throughout the country The quintessential Vermont hydro-experience is a swim in the Dorset Quarry. Surrounded by what remains of rock once mined there for assorted uses, private and public, the swimmer revels in the freshet of ground water that has emerged from the area's high water table to fill the huge excavation to great depths. A dip on Memorial Day weekend is a brush with the Arctic. On a hot August afternoon, it's enough to cool you down for the rest of the day. Even when the water temperature has become comfortable, the swimmer is surprised to wander into a cold draft served up by a strong underground spring. The water itself and the dives and leaps from high marble perches have made the quarry a favorite local swimming hole for most of the past century. » read more

Cereus: by Hubert SchrieblBy Louise Jones
Photography by Hurbert Schriebl

It blooms just once by the light of the moon. » read more