By Stephen Seitz With Town Meeting Tuesday, March 7, for most area towns, here is a round up of some of the questions voters in the area will be asked to decide. Killington: Killington voters will be asked to approve a $4.5 million budget. Also on the ballot are proposals to rescind the 1 percent…

Vermont shoppers are familiar with the Vermont sales tax of 6 percent on most retail purchases. However, many Vermonters are less familiar with the corresponding use tax. Use tax is due if a shopper has not already paid sales tax at the time of purchase (except on exempt items such as food or clothing), according…

By Julia Purdy RUTLAND—As promised at the initial public forum on the fate of Combination Pond in Oct. 24, 2016, public meeting No. 2 of the Moon Brook Pond Modification Project was held Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, at the Rutland High School. Roy Schiff and Jessica Louisos of the consulting firm Milone & MacBroom led…

By Kevin Theissen Major market indices reached new historical highs in January, highlighted by the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking the 20,000 milestone. However, political issues, along with a succession of disappointing earnings reports, trimmed gains in the final days of trading. For the month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5 percent while the…

By Marguerite Jill Dye A friend on Facebook from South Africa posted a quote that has helped me see it’s time for me to change my focus: “I cannot put it to you more simply than this: As long as you persist in considering the situation hopeless, then it is and you make it so.…

By Leah Burdick An injured barred owl sat in the back seat of a four-door sedan, staring balefully out the window at its rescuer. “I saw him on the side of the road, just sitting there, trying to fly,” the young woman explained to Maria Colby, director of Wings of the Dawn Wildlife Rehabilitation and…

I have been sitting here, pondering all of the ways life goes wrong. I have been thinking of all of the things that have happened to me, dozens of injuries, dozens of broken bones (ostensibly more than a dozen broken noses alone), love life that is ridiculous to the point of stupidity, loneliness, no retirement…

As we all know, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. During the aging process we sometimes take the “long way ‘round” to go places and do things. If you are with the love of your life, that might work out OK because to alter the age old expression just a little,…

My girlish interest in the Academy Awards is surely fairly obvious to frequent readers of this column, given the truly embarrassing number of times I’ve written here about the Oscars (including last week, in what was, upon reflection, possibly least coherent column in the history of my Mountain Times career—a serious achievement). Even so, I’ve…

$5,000 cash and prizes up for grabs Saturday, March 4—LUDLOW—Okemo Mountain Resort will light up the night sky and a specially constructed rail garden on Bull Run, Saturday, March 4, for its Light the Night rail jam presented by Amp Energy Drink. Cash and prizes totaling $5,000 will go to the best skiers and riders…

Friday, March 3, 6 p.m.—GRANVILLE, N.Y.—Warm up with soup and bread from different immigrant regions during the Soup and Bread Night happening Friday, March 3 at the Slate Valley Museum. The museum will open an hour early so visitors can dine with them. The menu will include Welch potato and leek soup, Irish stew, Italian…

Thursday, March 2, 6:30 p.m.—RUTLAND—College of St. Joseph is hosting a presentation by educator and women’s advocate Vandy Kemp Thursday, March 2, 6:30 p.m. Kemp’s discussion, titled “Beyond Lean In: Finding the Intersectionality of all American Women,” will examine how class, race, and ethnicity differences make it difficult for there to be a common sisterhood based on shared…

Saturday, March 4, 7:30 p.m.—RANDOLPH—Brothers Sam and Zack DuPont play Vermont-made folk-Americana, reunited after years of geographical separation by a fortified collaboration in music. Lush finger-style guitar work is complimented by elegant prose and a vocal blend that could only be matched by blood relation. The duo will perform Saturday, March 4, 7:30 p.m. as…

Saturday, March 4, 7:30 p.m.—BRANDON—Cradle Switch is a five-piece acoustic Americana group, based in Cambridge, N.Y. Tunes include originals and a range of songs drawing from bluegrass, country, folk and a little blues. With ballads as well as up-tempo rhythms, the group’s lyrics can be on the darker side (along the lines of Buddie and…

Wednesday, March 1, 7 p.m.—RUTLAND—Historian and professor Woden Teachout will discuss the many benefits of studying history in a talk at the Rutland Free Library on March 1, 7 p.m. Her talk, “What We Learn When We Learn About History” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open…