It’s the day before the Spartan Race, and I don’t know if I am doing it. I don’t even know if there are open spots left in the race. I have stayed ignorant of this fact for a reason. Last week I successfully put together some very steep climbs for a tough day and insured…

By: Marguerite Jill Dye We headed west with our Rutland friends, Sandy and Allen, on a five day road trip to Canada. First stop was Seneca Falls, N.Y., the setting for “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. It is also the home of the Women’s Rights National Historical Park. When two…

By Benjamin Lord “I’ve got a botanical question for you,” my friend said as he came into my classroom the other day. “Is black nightshade edible?” He’d found some growing near his chicken coop. “I took the tiniest bite,” he said. “I’m not sure if I felt funny because of what I ate, or because…

By Brett Yates As we enter autumn, the fare at the movies starts to get a little more serious, which means that, from here on out, Hollywood’s offerings won’t consist solely of sequels and comic book adaptations. Some of the films out there—like the recently released “Sully” and “Snowden,” with their stern single-word titles demanding…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week’s Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Taurus Moon. By Sept. 22, the Sun will enter Libra, and Mercury will turn direct. It’s almost 4 a.m. as I write and I am in a post-birthday haze (I turned 68 on the 18th) wondering…

By Dom Cioffi After nearly two months of appointments, tests, consultations, research, traveling, planning and discussions, I am now sitting at the forefront of my cancer treatment. I have relocated to Florida, lined up a remarkable staff of health care professionals, navigated three preparatory surgeries, and made all the necessary arrangements in order to focus…

By Dom Cioffi The second phase in my cancer journey is officially complete. The first phase involved my diagnosis and subsequent revelation to friends and family, while the second phase has been the completion of a series of procedures to ready my body for the third phase, which is the actual chemotherapy and radiation treatment.…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week’s Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Capricorn Moon that will stay Void-of-Course until it enters Aquarius at about 5:28 p.m. If it’s hard to get into the weekday grind on any other Monday, we can bet that the Void-of-Course energy that takes…

By Todd McLeish The big, meaty green caterpillars that many of us have been fighting to eradicate from our gardens this summer make plenty of people squirm. In part it’s because they are among the largest caterpillars in the region, sometimes reaching close to three inches in length, with reddish horns on their ends that…

From the time we are kids, life seems to make us “wannabe” something that we will probably never be. We might “wannabe” the kid who gets picked first by his classmates to play on a team. Or we might “wannabe” popular, pretty, handsome or thin. But as we grow up we realize that wishing doesn’t…

By: Marguerite Jill Dye For over a decade I taught art classes to seniors at the Killington Summerfest and was sorry to see it come to an end. However, I recently passed the crowded Adventure Center at Snowshed Base Lodge and saw mountain bikers and adventurers on chairlifts and zip lines, and I better understand…

Since August, the same sports-journalism scandal has occurred twice. First, an Internet firestorm arose when The Chicago Tribune tweeted the following: “Wife of a Bears’ lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics.” Feminists, already exasperated by numerous previous instances of sexist Olympic coverage, took the newspaper to task for identifying an accomplished woman…

I always know I have flipped back into ketosis (fat burning metabolism) when I wake up in the middle of the night with hot skin and high energy. It always happens when the switch flips, and then you sleep like a baby every night after that. I am glad to finally have eaten steak, eggs,…

By: Marguerite Jill Dye Updates on the election and news from across the globe seem surreal in our peaceful mountain setting, where we can shut out the frenzied chaos by meandering in nature. We are blessed to be far from much of the world’s distress, although we well remember Irene from five years past and…

By: Kyle Finneron I have never been an incredibly strong swimmer. In my youth, my parents signed me up for swim lessons and the swim team simultaneously in hopes that I would grow to love the water. Both met early on alternating mornings which was less than ideal for any child in the summer time.…