By Susan Shea On a walk one winter afternoon, I spotted two white objects darting across a snow-covered field. White on white, they were difficult to identify at first. It was a short-tailed weasel chasing a snowshoe hare! Apart from the snowshoe hare, short- and long-tailed weasels are the only animals in the Northeast whose…

By Cal Garrison a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week’s horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Sagittarius Moon, with a bunch of planetary changes to give us something to talk about. It would be presumptuous to say that we can cover it all, but let’s see if we can make sense of…

By DJ Dave Hoffenberg Theo Katzman, the multi-instrumentalist of Vulfpeck, is bringing his band to The Pickle Barrel this Sunday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m. I had the pleasure of speaking to him to find out what we can expect. He said, “It’s songs that are rooted in the classic rock tradition. That’s what I…

By Merisa Sherman Some trails just seem to possess a surreal quantity, taking you away to another world completely. Just like stepping through a magical wardrobe, these trails become worlds of their own, places that can cleanse your soul and remind you who you truly are. Like a siren, these trails call to you, luring you in…

By Merisa Sherman May your days be filled with powder, and mountains, and snow. May you find joy and happiness wherever it is your skis may go. May you make warmth for each other when you are stuck on the lift. May you always give and receive skis, as a time treasured gift. May you…

By Cal Garrison a.k.a Mother of the Skye This week’s horoscopes are coming out under the waning light of a Virgo Moon. We are coming up on the annual festival of love and hearts, Valentine’s Day. With that in mind it must be time to talk about what we do in the name of love.…

The Outside Story By Susie Spikol I have always admired nature’s mutineers: animals and plants that thwart the recognized system and do their own thing. As a child I was the sole member of my own duck-billed platypus club, endeared to this creature with the bird-like bill, beaver-style tail, and shocking ability to lay eggs.…

By Mary Ellen Shaw Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! It is a day devoted to love, and as one would expect, the majority of greeting cards are romantic. Some are funny and others simply wish you a “Happy Valentine’s Day.” You can come up with your own meaning for those words! Since Year…

Bringing the game home By Dom Cioffi Somewhere around the ninth grade, something clicked in my head with basketball, where it went from an activity to a passion. I had always played on my school teams and enjoyed watching the sport on TV, but it had never held any hallowed ground in my mind until…

By DJ Dave Hoffenberg King Margo: Coats and Costa find their niche in Killington There’s a new act in Killington: King Margo. After seeing them last Thursday at the Wobbly, I plan on seeing them every chance I get. Their harmonies are incredible and as local skier Paul Padfield said, “They sing like birds.” Their…

by Merisa Sherman We fell in love skiing together, our turns interlacing as we got caught up in the rhythmic pattern.  Dancing together down the mountain, we wove in and out of each other’s turns like skiers through the trees. Our souls intertwined, our ski souls forever merged as our hearts beat a sacred rhythm, joined…

by Meghan McCarthy McPaul Whenever I spy a pileated woodpecker traversing the sky, I pause to watch its weird undulating flight. The jerky rise-and-drop movement of this large woodpecker is endearingly gawky – like a mini pterodactyl visiting from the Cretaceous period. This time of year, the bird’s bold crimson crest flashes in stark contrast…

The reason withdrawals from a traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA) prior to age 59½ are generally subject to a 10% tax penalty is that policymakers wanted to create a disincentive to use these savings for anything other than retirement. Yet, policymakers also recognize that life can present more pressing circumstances that require access to these…

Better late than never? by Dom Cioffi I am confident that at some point in my young life, something happened to me that made me pointedly adverse to being late. I can’t tell you the exact moment or scenario, but I know it happened. I know this because I live my life in such a…

By Cal Garrison a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week’s horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Gemini Moon. I’ve spent the last few days wondering how to spin this introduction. Should I talk about the Coronavirus? Could we take a look at Brexit? Or could we discuss what’s going on with the…