Editor’s note: Brady Crain is a former full time stage hand, musician, engineer, stand-up comic, and musician, who grew up in Randolph, Vt. He is now a Realtor® with Killington Pico Realty. Earlier this summer he decided to enter a 60-kilometer running race in the Chic Chocs mountains of Quebec. This weekend he will attempt…

By Dom Cioffi Are you ready? Well, you better be because the world is about to end. I’m not joking. An asteroid is headed toward the earth and on Sept. 28 it is going to impact our planet, destroying infrastructure on an epic scale and causing a mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs. I know…

By Todd McLeish In 2006, I joined a team of biologists to trap bats in Vermont’s Chittenden County. We were searching for North America’s rarest bat, the Indiana bat, which had recently been discovered breeding in a forest in Middlebury. The biologists hoped to identify additional populations of this endangered species and develop a better…

When I was a little girl back in the 1950s this was a very exciting time of year. It was fair time! The fairgrounds have been located at 175 South Main Street in Rutland since 1856. The Vermont State Fair acquired its name in 1972. But my guess is that most people have always referred…

What is it with people who claim that breakfast is their favorite meal of the day? Stop saying this, people. In fact, it’s come to my attention that the phrase “favorite meal of the day” is employed solely in the context of breakfast: no one ever uses it to describe lunch or dinner. Yet both…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Virgo Sun, a waxing, Libra Moon, and a bevy of aspects that have us teetering on the brink of something huge. Between the headlines and the crystal ball, rumor has it that the shit really IS…

By Dom Cioffi I first sensed that something was awry with the gentleman standing next to me when I noticed that the conversation he was having was completely one-sided.  I had just run into a local coffee shop to grab a snack prior to seeing this week’s film when the raggedy old man next to me…

By Carolyn Lorié Multiflora rose is not without charm; in fact, there was a time when people went out of their way to plant it. The pretty spring flowers have a sweet scent; birds nest in the sturdy branches and eat the berries. You might even catch a glimpse of a bear or snowshoe hare…

What, exactly, is the difference between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? “Everything,” you might say. “Every single thing.” Yeah, that’s mostly right, but not entirely. There is one very obvious similarity, in that both Sanders and Trump have, from opposite ends of the liberal-conservative spectrum, engendered more genuine, visible excitement than their counterparts from within…

By Brady Crain Looking down from the top of Superstar, Crain snapped this photo. It was the middle of his 40-pound weighted-vest hike up and down that trail. At about mile 15, I crossed Route 4 from the Sherborne Pass lot to head up Deer’s Leap. Once on the trail, I squatted down to stretch…

By Cal Garrison, a.k.a. Mother of the Skye This week's Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Cancer Moon, with aspects that are bound to require more than the usual amount of mental and emotional self control. The next few days will be governed by the way we handle ourselves from moment to…

By Dom Cioffi I am a self-admitted news junkie. I’m not sure why. It could be due to over two decades of work in the newspaper and television industries. Or it could be just an innate desire to be knowledgeable on as many subjects as possible. Whatever the case, I like the news. And I…

Jazz legend Mose Allison once said, "The essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing and instrumental personality." With that in mind, make sure you don't miss Oak Totem Trio do their take on jazz at Choices Restaurant this coming Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. It is also the first of what might…

It was an eventful week here in Killington, my week starting with an 11 mile run, the basic, Sherburne Pass to Killington Peak and back. It started with me not feeling well…thinking I might only make it about four  miles. But then, a mile in, I inhaled a rather large moth. I couldn’t cough it…

Have you ever had the feeling that, for the majority of the country, rural New England exists primarily as a collection of elite and picturesque yet vaguely sinister private boarding schools? In movies and novels, the New England prep school is not merely a setting but a hermetic, lyrically genteel genre unto itself, with its…