By Declan McCabe In peaceful streams, aquatic macroinvertebrates such as crayfish, stoneflies, and caddisflies travel over and under submerged rocks, foraging for other invertebrates, leaves, and algae. When rain falls, their world turns upside down. At first only the surface is disturbed, but before long, runoff reaches the stream and increases its flow manyfold.…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under the light of an Aries Moon. Redoubled by the fire of the Sun in Leo, and amped up by the power of the Lughnassah Crossquarter filling the matrix with the kind of energy that only shines down on us during…

By Dom Cioffi Summer vacation is a gift to children, but as most parents realize, the logistics of finding a place for your child every day for three months can prove daunting. No amount of planning or money can deter the occasional hiccup when no one is around to watch them and no place is…

Beer is a social beverage. Yes, even the most outgoing of us may sometimes drink alone (cue the George Thorogood song), but I will take a leap and say that for most of us, our greatest occasions of enjoying beer have been when we are in the company of others. The beer may have been…

When E.L. Doctorow died last week in New York at the age of 84, Barack Obama took to Twitter to honor the late author: “E.L. Doctorow was one of America's greatest novelists. His books taught me much, and he will be missed,” our president graciously tweeted. It marks the seventh occasion during the Obama presidency…

It's been an interesting week here in The land of Brady.  As promised, I increased my training, and started to get serious. I had a short three mile run from Schoolhouse Road to the end of the sidewalk and back, which was a speed record breaker for me, at an average pace of 8:18 per…

By Rachel Sargent There is an all-natural material, produced at room temperature, that can be used to build homes, to make protective coverings, to hunt and trap, and even to swing through the air. It’s hypoallergenic, antimicrobial, and waterproof. On a per-weight basis it’s stronger than steel and more elastic than nylon or kevlar. What…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under a Sagittarius Moon. Earlier this week the Moon entered its Void-of-Course phase until she moves into Capricorn on Tuesday at around 3 p.m. on the East Coast. The better part of Tuesday saw us in the "Woo-Hoo; we're totally off…

By Dom Cioffi Toru Iwatani loved arcade games, especially pinball machines. In fact, he loved them so much that he spent all of his time studying their construction and design. He became so accomplished that at 22 years old he was hired by Namco, a Japanese arcade game maker. Iwatani was initially upset when he…

Submitted Hiroya Tsukamoto If you're free on Saturday night then you must head to Brandon Music at 7:30 p.m. to see Hiroya Tsukamoto. It's a show not to miss. He is a guitarist and composer from Kyoto, Japan who now resides in New York City. He began playing banjo when he was 13 years old…

By Dom Cioffi It happened on the evening of May 16, 1983; one of those events that was burned into my mind as well as the minds of millions of other people around the planet. It took only five minutes, but those five minutes would change the world forever. Growing up, we had two televisions…

By Carolyn Lorié On a recent afternoon, I was driving along my road in Thetford when I saw a baby ruffed grouse about the size of a pincushion scurry into the bushes. I had the same impulse I did as a 10-year-old, when I scooped up a baby blue jay hopping around on a neighbor’s…

Why is the new judge on “Masterchef” so annoying? For anyone who doesn’t know, “Masterchef” is a reality TV show and amateur chef competition—billed as the quest to find America’s best home cook—that has aired on Fox since 2010. Each year, after an extensive battery of tests and challenges, a new Masterchef is crowned by…

It’s not too often that an event I enjoyed as a child in the 50s can still be enjoyed today. But the Rutland City band concert in Main Street Park continues to delight those who attend. You will be pleasantly entertained on Sunday nights at 7 p.m. during 10 weeks of the summer. Growing up…

Vermont has been referred to of late as the Bavaria of New England, a state to which people travel to enjoy its mountains and scenic beauty, its high-quality foods, like cheeses and sausages—and its beer. To a large degree, the state’s economy and infrastructure were built to accommodate, equip, feed and entertain our visitors. The…