Columns

Behind my garden of native plants, one scrappy perennial holds its own among the tangle of goldenrod stalks and blackberry brambles. Its swaying flowerheads buzz with a throng of insects: golden digger and great black wasps, bumblebees, sweat bees, butterflies, and beetles. This pollinator magnet is mountain-mint. It hails from the same family, Lamiaceae, as…

Charles Wallace the Magnificent – A tribute part 7 Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard is former executive director of The Paramount Theatre. John Turchiano, his friend for 52 years, was formerly the editor of Hotel Voice, a weekly newspaper on the New York Hotel Trades Council. They are co-authoring this column to tell short stories on…

I look out onto the pond, at the ducks happily swimming, at the frogs hopping from rock to rock and at the people kayaking. I hear the crickets and birds, as the sun just barely peeks through the mountains. The sky is a beautiful display of red, orange, pink and yellow. I wish I could…

As the spotlight of the Full Moon begins to slowly wane, the intensity of the Sun gains momentum as it shifts into its favorite sign, Leo. Now that things look so vastly different than they did before, it may be easier to come as you are, so to speak. The time to be silent, the…

The 2nd annual Vermont Film Festival is happening this Thursday through Sunday and is packed full with something for everyone. Because they offer so much, the best deal is the all-access $100 pass. That gets you all three days of films, the welcoming party at Ramunto's Brick and Brew of Bridgewater with comedic shorts upstairs…

My mom is going to kill me for writing this, but I had my first sip of wine at age 4. Actually it was four sips of wine, Manischewitz to be exact. So I don’t if it could actually be counted as wine, but I got to take one sip for each of the four cups…

I graduated from high school in 1984, and while many things in the world are just the same, many other things are radically different.  First of all, there were no cell phones in 1984. If we wanted to talk to someone on the phone, we either had to be at home or had a dime…

Be kind to the earth, Always and forever, It has helped you so much, Why not help it.  How, you ask? Well the answer is simple: Recycle what you can, Pick up trash you find on the ground, Mother Nature thanks you for this, Because if you want to help the earth, If you want…

There are times where the astrology of a given moment in time is so literal, it’s almost as though the letters printed on the parchment of an ancient tome leapt straight off and came to life. There are times in life where a nanosecond is all it takes for a moment to become definitive and…

Rivershed in Killington has been making a name for itself in only a few short years in town. Music is one of the highlights, and this Nashville collaboration has been a huge hit. This Friday July 19 you have a chance  to see the fourth of its kind, titled “Nashville Nights”, at 7 p.m. I’ve…

Charles Wallace the Magnificent, a tribute part 6 Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard is former executive director of The Paramount Theatre. John Turchiano, his friend for 52 years, was formerly the editor of Hotel Voice, a weekly newspaper on the New York Hotel Trades Council. They are co-authoring this column to tell short stories on a…

A long time ago, not so far away, freshwater plants partnered with fungi and moved onto land from lake and river shores. Since that time, land plants have evolved many sophisticated strategies for terrestrial life. Yet to this day, growing in damp forests and on foggy mountainsides, are plants that embody ancient botanical history. Liverworts…

Building our Killington Dream Lodge, part 22 Vermont was the best healing balm for Dad’s cancer and my Argentine trauma. Our spirits were truly at home in our Dream Lodge where my parents had just moved upstairs! I ran up the real steps (the slanted ladder was long gone) and let out a cheer when…

Building a Killington Dream Lodge, part 21 Important steps were being taken in building our Killington dream lodge. Dad bought an oil tank and furnace. A septic field was laid out. They were all costly and progress was dictated by a limited budget and work just on weekends. When I completed my Kleiningersheim internship, Dr.…

It weighs on my chest, pressing downward with a force I never quite realized before. Each breath into my lungs feels slow, like I have to force the oxygen into my body rather than it just seeping in like normal. It’s heavy, this burden. The air is so thick it feels as though you are…