Cal Garrison (a.k.a Mother of the Skye) writes weekly horoscopes for The Mountain Times. If you would like an emailed notification sent to you weekly, sign up for the newsletter, below. Want to hear more from Mother of the Skye? Check out Mother's Celestial Inspirations for a deeper look into this weeks horoscopes Horoscopes for…

Cal Garrison (a.k.a Mother of the Skye) writes weekly horoscopes for The Mountain Times. If you would like an emailed notification sent to you weekly, sign up for the newsletter, below. Want to hear more from Mother of the Skye? Check out Mother's Celestial Inspirations for a deeper look into this weeks horoscopes Horoscopes for…

By Carolyn Lorié On the north end of my home is a nest site favored by eastern phoebes. Every year a pair shows up, sets up house, and raises a family. They arrive early in the spring, and I spend the long days of spring and summer watching them. At some point, the nest empties out,…

By Marguerite Jill Dye Aren’t we blessed to be in Vermont, witnessing the beautiful sights of fall? Multi-hued leaves glow against a backdrop of pine. Since our executive chef son Danny and our toddler grandson Silas visited us Columbus Day weekend, our hike up Killington brought to mind the colors of vegetables and spices: paprika,…

I am about to leave for my hike. I don’t know why I am unable to sleep on the night before something like this, but I dragged myself to bed dead tired and then lay awake for an hour, finally getting up to do all of my pre-exit tasks last night instead of this morning.…

The closer this election gets—or at any rate the closer we pretend it is—the more articles I see lamenting the foolishness of Millennials who plan to vote for third-party candidates instead of Hillary Clinton. The New York Times has been publishing these articles almost daily, including one called “The Folly of the Protest Vote” that…

The written word back in my youth did not appear on a digital device. It showed up on a piece of paper and was written with a pen or pencil. In the 1950s many young girls recorded their own personal experiences using a ballpoint pen to write their words. We had diaries complete with a…

By Dom Cioffi After I sent in last week’s column for publication, I looked at my mother and commented that I didn’t think I was going to have much more to say. After all, for the past two months I had done nothing but chronicle every aspect of my surprise battle with cancer. I had…

Cal Garrison (a.k.a Mother of the Skye) writes weekly horoscopes for The Mountain Times. If you would like an emailed notification sent to you weekly, sign up for the newsletter, below. Want to hear more from Mother of the Skye? Check out Mother's Celestial Inspirations for a deeper look into this weeks horoscopes Horoscopes for…

By Dom Cioffi My health itinerary said I was meeting with a counselor of some sort. At this point in the process I do not question the appointments that the Mayo Clinic sets up for me. They have been a marvel of efficiency and expertise throughout my cancer journey so I’ve reached the stage where…

By Madeline Bodin Scenes from the West’s five-year drought are striking – the cracked mud at the bottom of a dry reservoir, forests in flames. Wonder what a drought would look like in Vermont and New Hampshire? Look out the window. This is the first time that any part of New Hampshire has been in…

By Marguerite Jill Dye After hiking my favorite section of the Appalachian Trail, I walked along the water’s edge at Kent Pond. Six young men were playing ball on the road, enjoying a sunny day in the fall. After sketching Kent Pond I walked over to them. One was clad in Muslim robes. I pointed…

By Kyle Finneron As I was writing my list of reasons people are frustrated at the gym and not losing weight I noticed something. Most of the reasons I was writing about share a common root: stress. It should come as no surprise that Americans are stressed out- always trying to do more and be…

So it turns out that chiropractors pretty much instantly cure vertigo when they adjust your neck. Remember that if you ever get it, because uncured, I would frankly choose kidney stones if I could. I have been easing back, not doing much, riding the stationary trainer a few times a day to keep my legs…

Sometime last year I came across a used hardcover copy of “The Top of the Hill” by Irwin Shaw in Now & Then Books in Bennington. Swayed by the dust jacket image (a pair of skis and poles planted upright in the snow) and a recollection that the author had been a guilty-pleasure favorite of…