The Charlotte News | July 26, 2017

The

VolUMe LX NUMBer 2 | WeDneSDay, JUly 26, 2017

Charlotte News Charlotte’s award-winning community newspaper

THE FARM SERIES

Innovation at Stony Loam Farm page 22

Hopped up about the hop farm page 1

Arthaud litigation settled page 1

Where the Airbnb rental meets the rural road page 5

CharlotteNewsVT.org

Charlotte News

The

Vol. 60, no. 2 July 26, 2017

Vermont’s oldest nonprofit community newspaper, bringing you local news and views since 1958.

Take a journey with Captain Mike on Brizo Lynn Monty EDITOR IN CHIEF

“It’s peaceful, quiet, and the

Captain Mike Crowley is living the dream after decades of hard work and dedication on the job. With his pension in hand and a small retraining fee given to him by IBM a few years back, he set his sails on Lake Champlain. Quite literally, in fact.

He just spent five years as captain of the Whistling Man Schooner Co. on Burlington’s waterfront where he offered sailing tours on his classic sloop, Friend Ship. Now he’s embarked on yet another business venture at Point Bay Marina in Charlotte. With help from his wife, Karen, the two keep Brizo, their 36-foot yacht, in tip-top shape for private tours and Airbnb stays.

Captain Mike, as he’s best known in these parts, started sailing 14 years ago. “I always wanted to sail,” he said. “I grew up in Winooski and spent a lot of time on the lake, mostly fishing. I didn’t have family that sailed, and back then it was tough to get involved if you didn’t have a boat.”

From a wannabe to a member of the Royal Savage Yacht Club at Point Bay Marina, Captain Mike is finally in his element. “This is the place to be,” Crowley said.

“It’s peaceful, quiet, and the marina has everything here that I need whenever I need it. Great people. The whole boating scene here is incredible.” And Darling’s

marina has everything here that I need whenever I need it. Great people. The whole boating scene here is incredible.”

Captain Mike Crowley Boatworks is always on hand for restoration and repairs, Crowley added.

Retirement is sometimes referred to as a second childhood, and Captain Mike is the epitome of that sentiment. His private sailing charter boat, a Beneteau 361, is named Brizo after the Greek goddess who appointed herself guardian of sailors and fishermen.

She’s equipped with two cabins, a head, a galley and comfortable salon area. The boat sleeps six, but Mike is content setting sail with just his wife, Karen.

Mt. Philo Hops farm sparks debate

see CAPTAIN MIKE page 16

Captain Mike Crowley on his private sailing charter boat Brizo, a Beneteau 361, in Charlotte.

Courtesy photo

Restitution made for Selectboard misstep

Sarah Wolverton

Keith Morrill

NEWS INTERN

STAFF WRITER

Descending in a gentle slope from Route 7 alongside East Thompson’s Point Road are 59 acres of agricultural land, protected under the Vermont Land Trust and owned by Peter Briggs. This acreage is to be home to Mt. Philo Hops, the area’s first industrial size hops farm. Briggs bought the land earlier this year in an attempt to “reintroduce a historical crop to Vermont.”

Hops are used in beer production and require trellises 18 feet tall to grow properly. Of Briggs’ new property, about 30 acres will be devoted to these trellises.

Briggs and his farm manager, Julian Post, hope to begin selling their crops to local breweries within the next two to three years.

The land is under conservation easement

by VLT, which means that development is limited and practices that may harm the land are prohibited. According to Elise Annes, vice president for community relations at VLT, the “goal of an agricultural easement is to assist keeping the farm viable as a farming operation.”

For the concerns of many neighbors of the impending hops farm, agricultural easements do no good. Concerns about the hops farm range from strain on the water table to the destruction of views. Most of

The Town of Charlotte has settled a legal dispute just days before a courtordered mediation was schedule to begin. The settlement brings to a close a yearlong controversy with Thompson’s Point lessee Paul Arthaud and makes restitution for a misstep on the part of the town’s Selectboard.

The problem began when in 2014 the Selectboard approved Arthaud’s request to divide lot 127 on Flat Rock Road into two. One lot contained the original camp, the other—the newly created lot 128—housed a small outbuilding that had fallen into disrepair. Arthaud then sold the camp on 127 and transferred its lease to the new owners, retaining lot 128 for himself.

In 2016, Arthaud tried to sell that lot, signing an agreement of sale that fell apart when a permit to tear down and replace the decaying structure was denied by the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

This was when the zoning board also determined that the division of the lot had been illegal. The Selectboard had erred in dividing it in the first place, an action which stands in clear violation of town ordnances.

In August, Arthaud appealed to the Vermont Environmental Court, which

Site of Mt. Philo Hops farm.

Photo by Sarah Wolverton these concerns are raised by neighbors of the hops farm.

One such neighbor is Eliza Bedell, whose post on Front Porch Forum voiced her concerns about the effects on the viewshed of the tall trellises and accompanying hops vines, the effects on

see HOPS FARM page 16

Tree Warden 8 • Sports 13 • Rec News 15 • Senior Center 23

in turn ordered the parties to go to mediation. That date, July 11, was fast approaching when Arthaud’s lawyer, Liam Murphy, made an offer to settle.

In response, the Selectboard held an emergency meeting on the morning of Thursday, July 6. Several town officials were present, including Selectboard members Lane Morrison, Carrie Spear and Frank Tenney, as well as Town Administrator Dean Bloch and Town Clerk Mary Mead.

Arthaud initially claimed that, because of the zoning board’s decision, he was out $60,000 in profit and $10,000 in legal fees. After Arthaud’s settlement offer and the town’s counteroffer, both parties agreed that Arthaud would receive $30,000 in restitution and that Arthaud would both withdraw his appeal and release any claim to lot 128 and the structure there.

Selectboard Chair Lane Morrison recognizes the Selectboard’s misstep in the matter but says at this point it is in the best interest of both parties to settle.

“We’re all trying to save the expense of going to mediation,” says Lane, though he recognizes it is fair that Arthaud receive restitution. “That’s what we’re trying to do, to give him some money back to compensate him for this error that was made.”

see SELECTBOARD page 16

2 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Editorial

Long live Les Filles du Roi

Coming in cold and having to create a cohesive team, as well as establish a productive rhythm and fl ow of a newsroom, has been a challenge this past year, Lynn Monty but I must say EDITOR IN CHIEF we are fi nally on a roll. Things are actually calm enough now to tackle updating our beloved archives. Watching the genealogy tracking television program “Who Do You Think You Are” brought to light just how important newspapers are to researching family lineage. Witnessing the rich and famous piece together their ancestral story got me thinking about my own.

After some urging from Charlotte’s resident historian, Dan Cole, and about nine hours of research on Ancestry.com I found that famous singer Madonna and I share the same set of 9th greatgrandparents in Jean Besset De Brisetout and Anne Le Seigneur, who was a “King’s Daughter” or “Fille du Roi.” Anne married Jean who was a soldier and settler in 1668 to help colonize Canada for the king. Their son, also named Jean, is my 8th great-grandfather who was scalped by the Iroquois and lived to tell the tale.

In Canada it’s a great source of pride to be able to pinpoint a Fille du Roi in your family line, much like when Americans discover a relative who came over on the Mayfl ower. From what I have read, there were about 700 King’s Daughters who came to New France (Canada) between 1663 and 1673, under the sponsorship of King Louis XIV of France. Most FrenchCanadians are descendants of one or more of these courageous women of the 17th century.

We celebrated Charlotte’s FrenchCanadian heritage this week by joining the Charlotte Historical Society as they presented Va-et-Vient, a trio of Vermont women who performed traditional French-Canadian music at the Charlotte Grange Hall on Spear Street. Be sure to read Dan Cole’s story connecting the dots on Charlotte’s rich French-Canadian history on page 7.

Most of my Bessette ancestors lived in Chambly, Quebec, until 1839 or a little before when my 4th great-grandfather Jean Baptiste Ambroise Bessette moved to Chautaugay, New York. It was my great-grandfather Theodore Bessette (or his mom and dad) who moved to Vermont, including my favorite Bessette of all, my gram Katherine. She married my grampy, Jerome Lawrence, also a French-Canadian, in Burlington.

Many women far back in my family tree had the name Marie, which warms my heart because my fi rst name is

actually Lynn-Marie. Their maiden names are Hains, Paquet and more! I have so many cousins, including Andre Bessette who was canonized Saint André of Montreal in 2010. Jean Besset De Brisetout and Anne Le Seigneur are also his something-times great-grandparents.

So to recap, I descended from the same Filles du Roi as Madonna and a saint. Not quite sure what to do with that information. But I have to admit I am walking a little taller than before. Anne Le Seigneur lived to be 85 years old.

Back then, that was no small feat. I like to think her longevity is a testament to how much she was loved and cared for by her family.

Digging into our lineage means being elbows deep in old newspaper text at times. Now it’s all online. Or at least it was for me. One day far in future (or tomorrow) someone might be looking to piece their own family story together and will stumble upon The Charlotte News’s extensive 60-year archives, where we have documented the lives of those who have lived and died here. We are honored to provide that service. Visit CharlotteNewsVt.org and start searching today.

Care to share what you have found about your ancestry? Please email me at Lynn@TheCharlotteNews.org. I would love to hear from you.

The Charlotte News

The Charlotte News is a nonprofit community-based newspaper dedicated to informing townspeople of current events and issues. It serves as a forum for the free exchange of views of town residents and celebrates the people, places and happenings that make the Town of Charlotte unique.

Contributions in the form of articles, press releases and photographs pertaining to Charlotte-related people and events are accepted and encouraged. For submission guidelines and deadlines, please visit our website or contact the editor at news@thecharlottenews.org.

The Charlotte News is published in Charlotte

by The Charlotte News, Inc., a Vermont domestic 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation.

Distribution is made every other Thursday to all households and businesses in Charlotte and to more than 50 outlets in Shelburne, Hinesburg, North Ferrisburgh, Ferrisburgh, Vergennes and Burlington. The Charlotte News relies on the generous financial contributions of its readers, subscriptions and advertising revenue to sustain its operations.

Editorial Staff news@thecharlottenews.org / 425-4949 Editor in chief: Lynn Monty Layout manager: Anna Cyr Staff writers: Keith Morrill, Heather McKim Outwater intern: Sarah Wolverton, Morgan Magoon Contributing editor: Edd Merritt Copy editors: Beth Merritt, Vince Crockenberg, Carol Hanley, Edd Merritt, Janet Yantachka Business Staff ads@thecharlottenews.org / 343-0279 Ad manager: Monica Marshall Business manager: Jessica Lucia Board Members President: Vince Crockenberg Secretaries: Rick Detwiler, Carol Hanley Treasurer: Patrice Machavern Board members: Rachel Allard, Bob Bloch, Rick Detwiler, Carol Hanley, Gay Regan, Louisa Schibli

ON

THE

COVER:

Stony Loam Farm has a machine transplanter, which gives Dave Quickel the ability to plant four 500foot beds of vegetables in two hours instead of four. And they do it sitting down instead of on hands and knees.

Courtesy photo

Send us your news story ideas! news@the charlottenews.org

Contributors Trina Bianchi, Bradley Carleton, Lydia Clemmons, Dan Cole, Nicole Conley, Mark Dillenbeck, Michelle Fongemie, Bill Fraser-Harris, John Hammer, Jim Hyde, Woody Keppel, Lee Krohn, Hannah Manley, Beth Philips, Kerrie Pughe, Mary Recchia, Denise Shekerjian and Margaret Woodruff Subscription Information The Charlotte News is delivered at no cost to all Charlotte residences. Subscriptions are available for first-class delivery at $40 per calendar year. Want a subscription? Please send a check payable to The Charlotte News, PO Box 251, Charlotte, VT 05445.

Postmaster/Send address changes to: The Charlotte News P.O. Box 251, Charlotte, VT 05445 Telephone: 425-4949 Circulation: 3,000 copies per issue.

Copyright © 2017 The Charlotte News, Inc. Printed in Burlington, Vermont, by Gannet Publishing Services Member of the New England Newspaper and Press Association and the Vermont Press Association.

The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 3

Commentary Living our lives as elders

past the farm right when he did.

Later, Jack introduced me to Mr. Sawtel and the farm.

When my husband, Jack, and I moved to

Our fi rst purchase was the house and 10 Charlotte from Cleveland, Ohio, in 1962, acres.

The house was sound but needed we decided that we did not want to buy an to be restored.

The other buildings on the interim home—that is, a starter home or property were also in need of restoration. small home. We wanted to buy a home that We were fortunate to have met Mr. Cliff our children could be born in, grow up in Francis, an expert carpenter who was at and return to visit when they in turn grew the time working to restore some of the up. A home where our parents could live buildings at the Shelburne Museum.

His with us as they aged and where we could brother, Don Francis, was an expert mason. also live as we aged. We fell in love with our farm, its land and buildings at fi rst The two men agreed to work with Jack to restore the house because they liked his sight.

My husband fi rst discovered the farm ideas about restoration.

Back in the early 1960s, the land was when he came for a job interview with the under contract with a company that was University of Vermont. He found the farm searching for natural gas. Supposedly one day while walking from Shelburne to Charlotte was designated back then as one explore a town called “Charlotte” on what of the areas where natural gas could be were then dirt roads: Bostwick Road and found.

When the contract for the natural Greenbush Road. He was in his late 30s gas exploration ended, we were able to back then and had the energy to walk that complete the purchase of the remaining 138 distance to explore the area. The farm at acres by mobilizing all of our savings along 2158 Greenbush Road was the fi rst place he stopped during his long walk. He stopped with fi nancial support from our parents and because the owner, Mr. Sawtel, and his other family members. We were delighted sons were standing on the front porch, because now we had a home that was ours discussing the future of the farm. The sons to raise our children in and to retire in when wanted to sell the farm. Mr. Sawtel wanted the time came.

Life has been wonderful for us in to keep it. It was destiny that Jack walked

Charlotte. We are retired from our professional careers and are now embarking on furthering our dreams for the farm: a farm that is productive and self-sustaining, a place for our children, our grandchildren and beyond. A place to share with our friends, our neighbors and our community in the way that we did in our younger days and more.

Jack and I have lived a life blessed. Now a new adventure awaits us as we expand from hayfi elds and large vegetable gardens to a farm that can benefi t our home town of Charlotte as well as the State of Vermont and beyond. We are fi lled with gratitude that we had the good fortune to raise a family and to develop a property that is an asset to our town, state and country— all because our basis for a happy life has always been having one home to raise our children and to retire in, participating in community aff airs, sending our children to our local schools, going to church in our local community.

We are grateful that through our jobs we were able to secure fi nancial stability that enables us to be very comfortable now in our lives. We have everything we need. We are grateful for the many people who have come forward to help us in this exciting

Marty Illick and the Lewis Creek Association, a leading Vermont water quality and conservation organization, have been honored with the eighth annual GMPZetterstrom Environmental Award.

The award, named for famed osprey advocate Meeri Zetterstrom of Milton, was presented Wednesday for more than 25 years of work and education to improve the Lewis Creek watershed, which spans Ferrisburgh, Monkton, Charlotte, Hinesburg, Starksboro and Bristol in Addison and Chittenden counties.

Nominated by employees of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, Illick, the executive director, and LCA were praised for using data as a tool to support conservation in the watershed.

“Over the last 10 years, the LCA has persevered and continues to improve the evolving relationship it has with state and local governments,” nominators Jim Pease and Karen Bates said. “The LCA has, more than any other water quality non-profi t organization in the state, delved into the complexities of water quality monitoring, stream geology and the interaction between

education, and environmental compliance.

GMP Vice President Steve Costello, who worked closely on osprey education and conservation with Zetterstrom for years before she died in 2010, said Zettersom would applaud Illick and the LCA. “Meeri had an unbending commitment to Vermont and the environment at large, and knew that water quality was critically important,” Costello said. “Given that they only eat fi sh, her beloved ospreys rely on clean water every day, so she would celebrate Marty and the LCA’s work.

“Like Meeri, Marty and the LCA have taken the long view, working over decades to improve habitat, water quality and recreational opportunities along Lewis Creek,” Costello said. “That kind of perseverance is uncommon and inspiring.”

Zetterstrom began what became a statewide initiative to restore endangered ospreys in Vermont in the late 1980s. Despite people annoying the birds accidentally and intentionally, and repeated nest failures, Zetterstrom remained focused on her goal.

Lydia Clemmons (Senior), Charlotte

project, which is to transition our beloved farm into an African American Heritage and Multicultural Center: The Clemmons Family Farm.

So our formula in living our lives has been this: one home (for life) + one community (for life) + contribute to our community and help as many people as possible—all to make this farm a wonderful place to thrive and an inviting place to live and to share with others. We have lived the life we have wanted to live. We are still living the life that we want to live. After 55 years of investing in our property, scrimping, saving, working to improve our property, we would be saddened, totally dismayed if it was sold.

All management decisions for the property, while we are alive, are ours. The way the Clemmons Family Farm is being managed is our decision, at our request, and exactly in line with how we have always lived on this property and with what we have always dreamed for the future of this property.

The decision about how we live has always been our decision and is always our decision. Perhaps this is yet another opportunity for Jack and me to serve our community by demonstrating how elders can choose to live their lives.

Marty Illick and the Lewis Creek Association honored with environmental award water quality, nutrient runoff and land use.”

Like Meeri Zetterstrom, who was never afraid of ruffl ing feathers as she worked to restore nearly extinct ospreys to Vermont’s skies, Illick and the LCA have embraced the diffi cult conversations that often accompany environmental progress.

“LCA has pushed the envelope of water quality protection and preservation with municipalities and the DEC,” Pease and Bates said in their nomination. “Instead of contesting a decision or position that it disagrees with, the LCA or one of its partner collaborators will undertake a new study, acquire more data and information using an assortment of volunteers, staff and partners, and return to the table with a better argument or case for its position. It is this approach that has given them a reputation as a highly respectable, persistent, eff ective and intelligent voice for the public on water quality issues.”

Illick and the LCA were unanimous winners in a selection process that involved a panel of GMP employees with responsibilities related to land management, resource protection, community relations and

After years of eff ort, the birds were removed from the endangered species list in 2005. Plans for the GMP-Zetterstrom Environmental Award were announced in 2010, shortly before Zetterstrom died, with three goals: recognizing similar environmental heroes, honoring Zetterstrom’s legacy, and inspiring others.

Past Zetterstrom Award recipients include Sally Laughlin, a leading wildlife advocate and scientist whose work was instrumental in restoring three species of endangered birds in Vermont; Michael Smith, the founder of Rutland’s Pine Hill Park; Margaret Fowle, who led Vermont’s peregrine falcon restoration program; the Lake Champlain Committee, which works to protect and improve Lake Champlain; Kelly Stettner, who founded the Black River Action Team in southern Vermont; Roy Pilcher, founder of the Rutland County Chapter of Audubon; and Lake Champlain International, a nonprofi t working to protect, restore and revitalize Lake Champlain and its communities.

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4 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Around Town Edd Merritt CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Corrections:

Judy Rowe ran a business, not a journal

In last issue’s obituary of Judy Rowe we incorrectly said that her business “North Country Journeys” was a magazine. In fact it was an organization through which Judy took women on trips all over the world, seeking outdoor adventure. She led trips down local rivers but also went as far afi eld as Costa Rica, Iceland, Scotland, the Grand Canyon and the Baja Peninsula. We apologize for the mistake.

We omitted mentioning Milk Money winning an award

In our July 12 Around Town we congratulated Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) and its founders Beth Sachs and Blair Hamilton (Blair having grown up in Charlotte) for winning The Vermont Business for Social Responsibility Tony Erich Award for lifetime achievement. We failed to mention another VBSR award for small corporate members of the organization.

It went to Charlotter Louisa Schibli and her company, Milk Money. Starting the company in 2015, Louisa and her partner Janice Shade opened the fi rst registered third-party portal for administering investment campaigns in Vermont. They use the Vermont Small Business Off ering exemption.

Congratulations:

to Tyler Allen who grew up in Charlotte and now lives in the “Big Sky Country” of Montana and who was recently promoted to Managing Editor of Outlaw Publications. The company publishes the Explore Big Sky newspaper and Mountain Outlaw magazine. Tyler has been a regular writer for the newspaper that features articles about its region of Montana. A graduate of Champlain Valley Union High School and the University of Vermont, class of 2002, he is the son of Jane and David Allen of Charlotte. to Nurse Practitioner Kelly (Brush) Davisson R.N. of Charlotte who received the “Emerging Leader Alumni Award” from the MGH Institute of Health Professions graduate school in Boston.

Kelly is a pediatric nurse practitioner with Hagan, Rinehart and Connolly Pediatricians in Burlington. MGH Institute is a graduate school founded by Massachusetts General Hospital. to Marty Illick in her position as the head of the Lewis Creek Association, which, in partnership with “Keeping Track,” won the 2017 Federal Highway Administration Environmental Excellence Award for taking the lead in design and construction of two wildlife crossings of the MonktonVergennes Road. Designed to facilitate the safe crossing of a diverse amphibian population in this region, the crossings are working well, attracting thousands of

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As seen on Greenbush Road last week. amphibians annually as well as a number of small to medium size mammals. to James Hudziak, M.D. who was recognized on Vermont Public Radio and WCAX news for his work as Creator and Director of the University of Vermont Wellness Environment (often referred to as WE). Dr. Hudziak, a child psychiatrist, created WE to help families and children alike. He also designed The Vermont Family Based Approach, a health promotion program with the same “pillars of wellness” as WE. to Warren Rinehart, MD, a former Charlotte resident now living in the Residence at Otter Creek, who was featured in an article in the July 19 Seven Days for his move from medicine to metal-working. Dr. Rinehart retired from his practice as an orthopedic surgeon at UVM, where he had been for ten years. He had also had an avocation as a blacksmith and wanted that part of his life to live on.

He hooked up with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) that allowed

him to build an 1,800-square-foot blacksmithing facility on the museum’s grounds. Half of the building serves as Dr. Rinehart’s workshop where he continues his metalworking. The writer of the article found it interesting in discovering where metal work and a maritime museum found a common link. Apparently, in the late 1980s LCMM built a forge to help in the construction of the “Philadelphia II,” a replica of an 18th-century gunboat that patrolled Lake Champlain. With that the forging began.

Sympathy:

is extended to family and friends of Jill Young of Charlotte who passed away July 12 at the age of 52. Her surviving family includes her husband, Brad, and their daughters Meg and Catherine. The family asks that, in lieu of fl owers, donations be made to Margaret and Catherine Young at the Jill Young Memorial Fund, c/o Rhonda Forcier, 19 Loubier Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452. These donations will be used to assist the girls in pursuing their passions and/or educational endeavors.

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The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 5

Town Charlotte citizens concerned about short-term home rentals The Planning Commission has received complaints recently from Charlotte residents who live near shortterm home rentals.

The residents are concerned about the lack of regulations governing the rentals, as well as about the behavior of the renters at

Rick and Darci Lunt also expressed concerns about renters turning around in their driveway.

Robert Noelter said, “No supervision over the rental being required now opens the door for issues of unsafe behavior, excessive noise, trash, pollution and excessive neighborhood driving speeds going unchecked.”

Rev. Robert Macauley, a short-term Morgan Magoon home rental owner, responded to Wool’s NEWS INTERN concerns. “We have established very clear rules for behavior, in order to show respect for structure, grounds and neighboring these locations. families and property,” he said. “We’ve The short-term home rentals are usually also been intentional about selecting guests posted on Airbnb or Vacation Rentals by who have requested to rent the property.”

Owner (VRBO). Airbnb lists 39 shortWool addressed why he thinks shortterm home rentals in Charlotte. VRBO has term home rentals should not be allowed. approximately 15 rentals in Charlotte.

“Accordingly, it would appear in the One complaint came from Michael shoreline district that short-term home Wool, who lives on Hills Point Road. rentals are not allowed by right under the “There are traffi c and safety concerns,” ordinance, are not a permitted use and do he said. “On more than one occasion I not qualify as a conditional use,” he said. have had multiple cars turn around in my “Hence, they should not be allowed.” driveway (with grandchildren playing) Information about Shoreland District asking where the rental or party is?”

(SHR) can be found in the Land Use

Regulations for the Town of Charlotte.

The purpose of the SHR is “(1) to protect the scenic beauty, environmental qualities and recreational opportunities of Lake Champlain and its shoreline, as viewed from both the lakeshore and the water, (2) to minimize runoff pollution and maintain bank stability by maintaining a vegetated buff er within 100 feet of the shoreline, and (3) to allow residential and limited commercial development that is consistent with these aims and is compatible with the rural character of the town as expressed in the Charlotte Town Plan.”

The Shoreland District land-use regulations contain a list of allowed by right, permitted uses and conditional uses.

Short-term home rentals do not appear on any of those lists nor in any other sections in the Charlotte Land Use Regulations document.

Macauley further addressed Wool’s comment about regulations. “Upon receiving a copy of that letter, immediately conferred with our attorney to make sure that we were not violating any law or ordinance (and thankfully we were assured

we weren’t),” Macauley said.

Other public comments addressed concern about the lack of regulations.

Robert Noelter said, “I am concerned, however, that our existing Town Plan does not provide suffi cient controls relative to short term/transient rentals.”

Town Administrator Dean Bloch said the State Legislature is setting up a work group to address short-term rental concerns. “The Planning Commission will be looking into it, but their fi rst priority will be the Town Plan, so it may take a while to get to that,” Bloch said.

Morgan Magoon is a Charlotte resident and a 2016 CVU graduate. She is currently a student at the University of Rhode Island where she is a communications major and is thinking about pursuing writing and/or gender studies as a minor. She loves writing and spends her time reading and sketching.

She is also passionate about physical fitness. Morgan wants to gain experience as a writer to aid her in her studies and strengthen her voice as a journalist.

New decking for Charlotte Beach dock Heather McKim STAFF WRITER

Residents who attended the Town Beach party may have noticed the docks have a new look. That’s because at the July 10 meeting of the Charlotte Selectboard, a unanimous decision was made to replace the decking.

That re-decking project was necessary, Recreation Director Nicole Conley explained at the meeting, because boards were splintering and rotting. She laid out the options for replacement: cedar board decking and installation for $4,000 or synthetic nylon deck boarding for $9,400.

Steve Williams who, along with his son Jake, has been responsible for keeping the

beach in good shape had been consulted about the decking. Williams recommended cedar boarding for the project, because synthetic boards can warp in the heat and cost three to four times more than cedar.

There was concern that the Recreation Commission did not have the funds in the Recreation Capital Budget for the project.

A discussion ensued regarding funding sources, including the Town Improvement and Repair Fund. A friendly amendment was made by Selectboard member Fritz Tegatz to fund the project out of the Improvement and Repair Fund.

Board members decided that the decking would be replaced with 6-foot cedar board panels. The plan was to have the project carried out as soon as possible, and that is

exactly what happened.

Conley promptly contacted Williams of SJ Williams who, she explained in an interview, has been a preferred vendor to Charlotte for Town Beach repairs for a number of years. “We have been really happy with all their work,” she said of the company, adding that she trusts the Williams’ expertise.

The project was completed on July 14, the day before the annual beach party.

The new decking is expected to last a number of years, but just how long is unclear. The previous decking had been in place, Conley said, for about fi ve years or so. It had taken a lot of wear and

tear. The future for the new decking will depend on factors such as the amount of use and weather conditions. Windy days, Conley explained, mean that the water hits the docks and results in wear and tear.

However, she expects that the new cedar planks used in the project should hold up well.

The quick turnaround time on the project was appreciated. Conley was happy to have the new decking in place for residents to enjoy at the party.

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6 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Town

Charlotte seniors cruise with the Martins John Hammer CONTRIBUTOR

With the words “Cast off all lines,” Captain Al Martin set sail once again from Point Bay Marina last Thursday morning headed for Vergennes. The cruise, part of a series around the lake sponsored by the Charlotte Senior Center, was much anticipated and fully booked. Last year the Otter Creek was too shallow to accommodate Martin’s 42-foot trawler yacht, the Nancy Ann, which draws three-and-a-half feet. Nancy Ann normally makes four such cruises a summer with a typical passenger list of 20 plus four crew.

The cruises are a favorite element of the Charlotte Senior Center’s summer program, and Captain Martin revels in the chance to sail up and down the lake regaling his cruisers with stories and history. He’s been doing it for 16 years and seems to enjoy it as much as his passengers. His former role as owner and towing operator of the Point Bay Marina required him to obtain a Coast Guard 100-ton captain’s license, so he has a wealth of boat experience, which he willingly shares with the large group of cruise members who cluster about him on the flying bridge.

The cruise up Otter Creek, Vermont’s longest river, is one of Martin’s favorites. The Otter Creek is full of history beginning at the mouth, where Fort Cassin is found. Little known, Fort Cassin was an earthen redoubt on which seven 12-pounder cannons were mounted to protect the mouth of the creek. Little remains of the “fort,” though some of the remnants of the earthworks can be seen from the lake.

A two-hour battle was fought there in

Death investigation at Point Bay Marina

The voyagers of the Dream Day on the Lake, June 15, offered by Allen and Nancy Martin.

Courtesy photo 1814 to protect the American fleet being built and homeported in Vergennes by Captain Thomas Macdonough. This fleet was later to take part in the pivotal battle of Plattsburgh, in which the British fleet was defeated. The battle of Plattsburgh is often noted as the most important naval battle in the War of 1812 and gave the young American country a more powerful position in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Ghent that ended the conflict in December of 1814.

The name “Cassin” was given to the fort Captain Al Martin manning the ship. in recognition of Lieutenant Stephen Courtesy photo Cassin, who played a key role in the Martin’s wife, Nancy, quietly served defeat of the British.

The cruise up the lower seven miles as first mate, complementing many of of the creek included a picnic lunch stop her captain’s stories with humorous across from the site of the Vergennes elements of candor. Another key player shipyard. Here the visitors were treated was the designated “swabbie,” Greg to further discussions of Macdonough’s Smith, who seemed to be everywhere fleet and the spectacular sight of the aboard, catering to the needs of Vergennes Falls, which were in full passengers, particularly during the spate following the heavy rains of the embarkation and mooring evolutions. It past weeks. The creek is broad and should be noted that the Martins provide deep, allowing Captain Martin the this service several times a summer for opportunity to entertain his passengers free to seniors of the community, and with stories of various points of interest they are to be commended for their along the shorelines. The cruise included community service. numerous wildlife sightings.

Point Bay Marina.

Photo by Lynn Monty Police found an idling boat near the docks at Point Bay Marina that led them to a body in the water about 30 feet from shore. This was after Vermont State Police Williston Barracks were notified of an abandoned boat at Town Farm Bay on July 15.

Investigation revealed David Clement, 64, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was returning to his slip at the marina when he fell into the water and drowned, police said.

The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information or who was in contact with Clement on July 15 is asked to call the Vermont State Police.

Local Church Services Charlotte Congregational Church, UCC 403 Church Hill Road, 425-3176 Regular Sunday service: 9:30 a.m.

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church Spear Street, 425-2637 Sister parish: St. Jude’s, Hinesburg Regular schedule of masses: Saturday, 4:30 p.m., at St. Jude’s, Hinesburg Sunday, 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Sunday, 9:30 a.m., at St. Jude’s, Hinesburg

The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 7

Town Charlotte’s first families Dan Cole CONTRIBUTOR

This month we acknowledge the 255th anniversary of the charter establishing the Town of Charlotte. The original grantees were primarily from Dutchess County, New York, and virtually all were land speculators who quickly sold their rights to settlers from Massachusetts (primarily Lanesboro) and Connecticut, where the majority originated in Litchfi eld County. But two distinct ethnic groups also served our town: the Irish and the French-Canadians. Let’s take a brief look at the latter group.

Charlotte’s fi rst families were remarkably homogeneous culturally and almost exclusively Protestant in their outlook, from our 1762 charter through the 1820s. Political repression by the English and famines in Ireland saw migrations of the Irish, many arriving in Quebec City to fi nd political repression of the French-Canadians by the English and famines in Quebec. Many looked south of the border for relief.

The history of French-Canadians is one of resilience rooted in the desire to retain their traditions and, above all, their language—to be a distinct cultural community. Francophones have succeeded so well that, in Canada, despite losing their French colony to Great Britain in 1760 and remaining a minority ever since, the Canadian government must translate every single offi cial document into French, and all border agents, Air Canada fl ight attendants and Service Canada employees must be bilingual. Their attitudes were little diff erent when they relocated to the States almost two centuries ago.

Kevin Thornton, Ph.D., son of our late Historical Society President Frank Thornton, writes that “the French-Canadian population of Vermont is estimated to have risen from around four thousand in 1840 to over twelve thousand in 1850, with most settlement occurring on the northeast border and along the Champlain Valley.” He describes them as often “desperately poor, often illiterate and, in the case of the French, sometimes unable to speak English.” Locally they were met with a social wall of resistance. According

to Thornton, Rowland E. Robinson (of Rokeby) in his book Vermont: A Study in Independence (Boston, 1892) spoke for a large number of locals when he described the Quebecois variously as “an inferior class,” “professional beggars,” “vagabonds,” “lazy,” and the women as “slatternly with litters of fi lthy brats, all as detestable as they were uninteresting.”

Thornton writes that a Francophone settler “was invisible also to nearly everyone in town except his closest neighbors. As far as his participation in public life was concerned, he may as well have been living in a wilderness.” Yet it didn’t seem to matter. They came, often taking the most menial jobs as farm laborers and servants.

Most important, they brought their culture with them, the French language its core, although some Anglicized their names: for example, Charbonneau became Coleman (or Cole); Boisvert became Greenwood; Boivin became Drinkwine; Vaillancourt became Vancor. Many fought for the Union in the Civil War. Regardless of how the Yankees viewed them, the French-Canadians declined to compromise their form of cultural nationalism. As a result, Thornton emphasizes that they often found themselves culturally isolated on the periphery of society as they moved into a well-established Yankee community—and they were Catholic. An RETN promotion for Kevin Thornton’s work states that French-Canadians were “scattered throughout a town [Charlotte] that had always lacked a true center, unable to form homogenous ethnic neighborhoods, lacking even a church until 1858,” which had to be dealt with.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church was being built by 1860 in response to the growing numbers of immigrant Catholics. The church’s history notes that the parish was too small to have an established priest, therefore mass was infrequent and often held on a weekday to allow the clergy to preach Sundays at their regular churches. In 1872 Father Jerome Cloarec wrote of the impact on Charlotte’s 70 Catholic families (predominantly Irish): “The Congregation would no doubt do a

This photo is circa 1930 and is of Edmund and Laura Marcotte and their young family in the yard of the farm they own on Carpenter Road, just east of the bridge over the Laplatte River. Edmund and family owned a car as well as a prosperous farm.

Photo courtesy of Charlotte Library; Janette Armell Collection great deal better if a priest could say mass for them regularly on Sundays. The French Canadians of the Congregation suff er more than the Irish because they are [hired out] and have no opportunity to attend mass on weekdays.” He adds, “This Congregation promises to do a great deal better if it could be attended regularly on Sundays. It seems to be a little discouraged. They attend their religious duties pretty regularly. I fi nd the greatest diffi culty teaching Catechism to the children, especially to the Canadian children as very few of their parents can read.”

Thornton refers to 1846 Charlotte settler and French-Canadian Antoine Loraine as “a member of a rural underclass almost invisibly superimposed on the antebellum New England village. Seeing him clearly we also see the problem of class where we might least expect it, in the heart of the FreeSoil ideal being formulated at just about the same time he was clearing his land and building his house.”

It took time, but attitudes changed. It is hard to imagine Charlotte without the infl uence of its French-Canadian and Irish heritage—people who began with almost nothing, seized any opportunity that presented itself, and now occupy a

respected place in Charlotte’s historical record. For the French, by persevering, by emphasizing family, by adhering to their religion, and by retaining their unique and clearly identifi able language and culture, often through traditional music, they did not cross an international border as much as they extended the boundary line south.

“The Vermont of to-day, with its railroads, its telegraphs and telephones and broader means of culture, has only entered into the reaping of what the fathers sowed.

One by one those earlier workmen have disappeared, as we, too, shall disappear in our turn someday.

“Thus time works his changes, ceaseless as the cycles of the sun. He is pictured to us as wrinkled, old and gray, but he marches onward with the vigor of eternal youth, with energies as fresh as when the morning stars sank together over the birth of the world. It is for us to face the responsibilities of our day, as the fathers and the mothers faced theirs. We are remembering that the present is all that mortal man can call his own, for tomorrow is something that may never come and nowhere in all the annals of the ages has yesterday been seen again.” [W.W. Higbee]

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8 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Town Trees and trails on State Park Road The proposed Town Link Trail section along State Park Road will require the removal of trees, but which ones and how many? competing with it. In other instances tree removal would TREE WARDEN create a gap, and the landscape would be adversely aff ected.

If the Town of Charlotte wants In addition, trees that are in new trails, some trees will need to be close proximity to the suggested removed. How can we build our trails path are at risk from constructionso that tree cover is preserved as much related soil compaction and as possible? What’s an acceptable level damage to root systems. Changes of tree removal, and at what point do to grades and drainage patterns we decide that trees are more important within the root zones of these than trails? There are no clear answers neighboring trees are additional to these questions, but we can start risk factors. As a consequence, by taking a closer look at the plan for the total number of trees that building a trail along the north side of would ultimately be lost could State Park Road that would connect the be signifi cantly Melissa and Trevor Mack Trail, which higher than runs north at the Route 7 end of the road, those initially to Mount Philo State Park. removed to clear The Charlotte Selectboard asked your the way. The Tree Warden to conduct a preliminary degree of impact assessment of trees that would need to be depends on the removed to accommodate an eight-foot fi nal siting of the wide trail that starts four feet from the path, construction edge of the road and includes a two-foot design, and recovery zone (14 feet total from road mitigation edge). From the Mack Trail to the east measures. end of the road there are approximately My current 47 trees that would need to be removed, recommendation including individual stems of multi-stem to the trees and close clusters.

Selectboard, therefore, is to Some of these trees are not a concern are 14 trees that might be considered identify a trail site diff

erent from the one because they are dead, dying, malformed, signifi cant: three basswoods, one box immediately adjacent to the road that I suppressed or, in the case of the elms and elder, four burr oaks, two red cedars, was asked to assess. Instead of creating ash trees, expected to succumb to Dutch one sugar maple, two white pines and a straight connection between Mount elm disease or the emerald ash borer. one willow. In some instances the vacant Philo State Park and the Mack Trail, the After eliminating from consideration space left by removing one tree would be town could pursue a site that preserves these trees of lesser concern, there quickly fi lled by nearby trees that were

Mark Dillenbeck

“A moderate-to-low impact path that

winds in and out

of a tree line … is likely to be supported

by the Tree Warden.”

as many of the signifi cant roadside trees as possible. A path that is mostly away from the roadside and meanders around important trees could be interesting and attractive. Indeed, this seems like a real possibility and was envisioned in Dubois and King’s “Charlotte Bicycle and Pedestrian Scoping Study” as a variant of the straight-path option.

The town has the required easement rights, or could acquire them, on much of the adjacent property for an alternative path outside the town right of way. Of course, even this path would require the removal of some trees, but the eff ect of their loss on the view shed and roadside canopy would be minimal.

Assuming that an alternative, lowto-moderate impact path that winds in and out of a tree line can be identifi ed, it seems to me that the town’s interest in having the trail would outweigh its interest in preserving the trees that would have to be removed and those that would be placed at risk. Such a path is likely to be supported by the Tree Warden.

My current conclusion and advice to the Selectboard is based on a preliminary assessment only. No tree removals are authorized at this stage. Before that happens there would need to be, in addition to a more thorough impact assessment, a public hearing as required

by State of Vermont statutes regarding Tree Wardens.

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The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 9

Town

Food Shelf News

Kerrie Pughe

CONTRIBUTOR

Important Upcoming Charlotte Food Shelf Distribution Dates Wednesdays, July 26, August 9 and 23: 5–7 p.m.

Thursdays, July 27, August 10 and 24: 7:30–9:30 a.m.

The Charlotte Food Shelf is located on the lower level of the Charlotte Congregational Church vestry. Monetary donations may be mailed to Charlotte Food Shelf & Assistance, P.O. Box 83, Charlotte, VT 05445.

Pied piper of popsicles a hit at Town Beach Party Submitted by Bill Fraser-Harris

About 300 people, with lots of kids, enjoyed the annual Town Beach party last weekend. I towed around the Adams Berry Farm popsicles and usually had a lot of kids around the cooler—the pied piper of popsicles. The weather

A group “Baking for Good” at the Senior Center. These rolls are headed to the Charlotte Food Shelf. King Arthur flour provided the goods and instructions, and SusannaKahnledthebakingsession. Thisprogramisdesignedtobringcommunities together with a common cause; the Senior Center and the Charlotte Library teamed up to bake.

Courtesy photo

Books and much more at the Charlotte Library annual book sale

Carol Lowe Clay of Northern Bayou Cold Brew.

Photo by Rik Carlson

The Friends of the Charlotte Library would like to thank all who donated books and all volunteers who assisted An unusually sunny Sunday provided with sorting, hauling and selling them. the perfect venue for the annual library Thanks too to the food vendors who sold book sale. With tables of carefully vetted their fare: Gusto Gelato, Kimball Brook titles, ranging from thriller best sellers Farm, Little Garden Market, Luiza’s to children’s favorites, the sale off ered Homemade with Love, Miss Weinerz books for all ages and interests. A range Donuts, Northern Bayou Cold Brew of food vendors provided a variety of Coff ee, Thai At Home, and the Vermont delicious treats and created a festive Tortilla Company. Another successful library book sale! atmosphere.

Margaret Woodruff LIBRARY DIRECTOR

turned gorgeous, and food was plentiful, fi lling fi ve banquet tables with potluck off erings. Misty Knoll provided 250 chicken legs, and Fat Cow Farm provided the locally farmed burger.

Dale and Vanessa of Mow, Mow, Mow manned the grill. Music by Mystic Party band went on into sunset. A super time was had by all.

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10 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Leave your dogs at home this summer Pet Of The Month

Submitted by Homeward Bound, Addison County’s Humane Society Homeward Bound, Addison County’s Humane Society, through a partnership with Shaw’s Supermarkets, is on a state-wide mission to educate people on the life-threatening consequences of leaving a dog in a hot car. Large signs at the 11 Shaw’s store entrances will make the message loud and clear to shoppers all over Vermont, “Leave your dog at home this summer.”

Homeward Bound Executive Director Jessica Danyow said her team surveyed local law enforcement last year and learned that the majority of calls about dogs in hot cars each year were coming from grocery store parking lots. “The folks at Shaw’s Supermarkets are going to help us reach the entire state, and there is no doubt in my mind that dogs in Vermont will be much safer this summer,” she said.

Danyow said most people don’t intend to put their animals in harm’s way. “They innocently think that a trip into the grocery store will only take a few minutes,” she said. “What they don’t realize is that on a summer day, even with their car windows open, the temperature inside can reach triple digits in less than 10 minutes, putting their animals at great risk.”

Meet Nylah the Great

If you see a dog in a vehicle that appears to be in distress, you are advised to call 911 and stay near the car you are reporting.

Courtesy photo Some signs a dog is experiencing heat distress include excessive panting or drooling, glazed eyes, lethargy or unsteadiness, a deep red or purple tongue, vomiting and unresponsiveness.

Last July, “Forcible Entry of Motor Vehicle to Remove Unattended Child or Animal” became legal in Vermont, Danyow said. The law shields people from civil liability when they break into a locked vehicle to rescue a child

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or dog that is in “imminent danger of harm.” The law, however, requires concerned citizens to call 911, fi re or police departments before breaking into a car. They must check that all the doors are locked, use no more force than necessary to enter the vehicle, stay with the child or dog until emergency personnel arrive and leave a note on the vehicle about what happened.

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Submitted by Hannah Manley of Homeward Bound Nylah is the Arabic name of a princess, which is fi tting because Nylah is royalty.

Like a young princess, Nylah is bursting with energy and eager to explore the world. She is shy at fi rst and can be nervous when meeting new people but warms up quickly, especially to children. She loves to play with toys and stuff ed animals and enjoys the company of other dogs, especially if they are as playful as she is. Nylah is a one and a half year old hound mix. You can visit her Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. and until 7 p.m. on Thursdays at Homeward Bound, Addison County’s Humane Society, located at 236 Boardman Street in Middlebury. Or call (802) 388-1100 for more information.

The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 11

Education

The college conundrum made easy The decision to attend college is not just one of the most expensive propositions a family can entertain but a hugely important choice, as it sets a trajectory in motion for the Denise Shekerjian student’s future: CONTRIBUTOR employment, friends, career, g e o g r a p h y, income, opportunity and so much more.

Ideally, you want options.

Students: This means paying attention to the crown jewel of your application, which is the personal essay. Grade point, test scores and activities matter—yes, of course—but the essay is often the tipping point between who gets in and who is not invited. Why? Because it’s the one place

information (“I believe in world peace”), adulation of a mentor, political statements and controversial topics. Avoid these formats: humor, poems, sermons, letters, on your application where you, the human 4. Admissions counselors have stacks speeches or funny margins on the page being, come alive and distinguish yourself of essays, thousands even in any given meant to convey the shape of something, from your competition. The challenge, admission period, which blur together in which is just plain hard to read.

6. Grammar matters—but the good which I urge you to see as an opportunity, their sameness. Dig deep for meaningful, news is that if you can master just a handful is to interest and persuade your reader. personal content, and tell the story only of basic rules—things you can use forever, As a lawyer, long-time writer and you can tell. writing coach, here are a few quick tips to Like what? Like the student who told of by the way—your writing will improve get you started. painting a self-portrait over and over and exponentially, never mind the fi ne points.

7. Finally, edit. A lot. How do you know 1. Most applications, including the over, trying desperately to fi gure out the when you’re done? When there is nothing Common Application, provide a slate of face she wanted to show the world. Or the left to add or delete. prompts. There is no wrong prompt, but young man who, as the fi rst in his family to The stakes are high, but start early, start there is a best prompt for you. The task seek higher education, knew that it fell to now, and you will succeed. So off you go, is to fi nd it and write 650 well chosen, him to change his entire family’s trajectory. light of heart, free of mind, honest and achingly beautiful, astonishingly insightful Or the young woman who folded 1,000 bold, and write. and revealing words. Who are you and how paper cranes pursuant to a legend that well will you fi t within their community? promised a wish come true, only to realize That’s what admissions folks want to she didn’t need that wish after all. Or the Denise Shekerjian is an award-winning know. student who grew strawberries in her writer, lawyer, author and writing 2. Don’t be boring. The goal is to be school locker, which required conquering coach. For information on her summer workshops or to arrange one-on-one authentic and interesting—both things a series of engineering challenges. matter.

5. Avoid these overused topics: vacation private instruction, please contact 3. Tell a story—a good one, with a stories, sports victories, music or math (802)598-0271, or deniseshekerjian@ fabulous hook, a juicy, thoughtful middle competitions, lists of favorite things, gmail.com. Read her credits and what and a satisfying end. big subjects for which you have no real clients say at soulofaword.com.

A request to the community

you would be willing to discuss with one of our students? Or perhaps while you are reading this, As a foundation unit for our incoming a name of a friend, family or colleague comes ninth graders, the Nichols Core team at CVU to mind? If so, please share and contact me, will be engaging in a “Perseverance Project.” Michelle Fongemie, at mfongemie@cvsdvt.

Our goal is for our students to speak face to org. I will send out a brief Google survey that face with someone in their community who will be used to gather basic information to help has achieved a big goal and, through this facilitate the process. The interviews will take conversation, learn fi rst-hand about a real- place at a time which is convenient for you; we life example of an individual exhibiting grit also hope to coordinate an interview luncheon and the subsequent outcomes. We want our toward the end of September where interested students to understand what it like to set what community members could join us here at may seem to be a far-off goal, years in the CVU, if possible. making, and then strive to reach it. Students will then share this story with their peers. We, as teachers, think it is important for students to learn proper interview etiquette, especially as this process pertains to interacting with community members.

Do you have a story of perseverance that Submitted by Michelle Fongemie

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12 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

s l i a r t e h t g Hikin OF CHARLOTTE Photos by Makayla Bonilla

Sarah Soule and Makayla Bonilla in June.

Courtesy photo arved into A heart c the a tree on top of ilo.

Mount Ph

Yellow flowers by Lewis Creek on Roscoe Road in East Charlotte.

The view from the of Mount top Philo.

Lewis Creek on Roscoe Road.

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The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 13

Sports Edd’s Sports Report Edd Merritt CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Lions Cup Twin State Soccer goes green instead of granite

July 15 at New England College in Henniker, NH proved to be a good time and place for Vermont’s Twin State soccer players, both men and women.

With CVU’s Sierra Morton and Abba Weimer playing for the women and Joe Parento, Trey Tomasi and Brock Werner for the men, the Redhawks were well represented on the all-star rosters. The women pulled off a 5-0 win with Mallory Lloyd a 100-goal scorer from Sharon Academy hitting twice. New Hampshire still leads the series 17 wins against 13 losses and 5 ties, but Vermont is creeping up on them.

Two Redhawks won awards in the men’s 5-2 victory. Trey Tomasi won the sportsmanship award and Brock Werner was named best twelfth man. Harwood’s Ethan Riddell hit the net for three goals, and in the Vermont net, Essex’s Paul Federico was called upon to cover for only four shots, two of which he stopped.

S.D. Ireland takes opening tournament game into extra innings

several games out-of-state that did not count toward selection for the Vermont tournament.

On Saturday Ireland fell to the host team from White River Junction in the tenth inning, 10-9. The loss came despite 14 hits, half of them off Tyler Skafl estad’s bat. A CVU star, Skafl estad had a triple, a double and knocked in two runs. Another Redhawk, Liam Reiner took the loss in relief. A double-elimination tournament, Ireland faced defending champion Brattleboro Sunday morning in a paring of losers and remained alive in the tournament with a 3-0 win with Reiner again on the mound. Kyle Leggett had two hits.

Twin State basketball goes half and half

Hanover, NH High School was the site of the Twin State basketball doubleheader on Saturday. Led by West Rutland’s Brooke Raiche who scored 17 points, the Vermont women saw four players in double fi gures. Two of them, Marlee Gunn with 13 and Abby Thut with 10 were Redhawks. This off ense led the Green Mountaineers to a 71-59 win.

Despite a three-pointer in the closing seconds by CVU’s Walker Storey, it did not prove to be quite enough for the victory as the New Hampshire men held on for a 91-89 win. Storey gained the Vermont MVP award and hit for 16 points. Four Vermont players joined Storey in double fi gures.

It used to be the late Paul The local American Legion team, Newman, now it’s Dillon S.D. Ireland worked its way into the Machavern at Lime Rock state tournament with three wins in four games at the end of the season. The team won both ends of a double-header over Montpelier and secured a one-run victory over South Burlington before losing its last game of the local, regular year to the OEC Kings 5-4. Ireland ended with a record in its Vermont games of 11 wins, 10 losses, placing them fourth in the northern division. It also played

Dillon claimed his points this past weekend at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut, as he and his co-driver, Dylan Murcott, fi nished second in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge. Driving their Porsche Cayman GT4 MR, the two earned their second straight podium fi nish. This moves them to third in the championship point standings with four races remaining and only fi ve points behind the leader.

Local businesses collaborate to support Charlotte Land Trust Lynn Monty EDITOR IN CHIEF

Just as disciplined as one would think a math teacher would be, Kim Servin, of Charlotte, was poised and measured as she guided her class through precise spine strengthening movements inside a barn at the Adam’s Berry Farm last week.

Yoga Roots of Shelburne organized the class in this beautiful setting to benefi t the Charlotte Land Trust. Charlotter Francis Foster was there with her yoga mat in hand.

She was the president of the Land Trust for about 15 years. “It’s so fabulous that a local organization is benefi ting the Land Trust in this way on a conserved piece of property,” she said.

Ten percent of all proceeds from this summertime series of yoga classes will benefi t the trust.

Class began with a sun salutation to get the blood fl owing, followed by a series of standing postures to build strength, balance and stability. Chelsea Tedder of Burlington was there stretching and sweating as her daughter Dare Tedder, 2, played outside on the farm. She usually practices inside Yoga Roots’ Shelburne studio, but the views and fresh air drew her to this special Charlotte class.

Jessica Sanford of Adam’s Berry Farm said she’s enjoyed having people at the farm for yoga and berry picking. “Working with Yoga Roots to off er yoga on the farm connects people to their food and supports the Charlotte Land Trust and their work,” Sanford said.

Adam’s Berry Farm often collaborates with local businesses. The farm recently

PLANTS RO CKS W AT E R

Photo by Lynn Monty provided 700 pounds of strawberries to Zero Gravity Brewery to make a strawberry beer and often works with Fiddlehead, Sanford said.

“We have wanted to work with Yoga Roots for a few years and bring yoga to the farm,” she said “This partnership has been especially meaningful because it has allowed us to support the Charlotte Land Trust, which was instrumental in helping us arrive at this location.”

Servin, a New York City native, recognizes Charlotte as a special place and gave kudos to the Land Trust as well.

“There’s 85 acres right across from our house near Spear Street that will never be developed,” she said. “We benefi t from that a great deal.”

With the barn doors wide open, a gentle breeze blew through class at just the right moments. Servin guided 14 participants from down dog through warrior poses with ease. Cleansing rain came just before savasana, and the sun shone bright again as it was time to head out to pick berries.

More classes like this are scheduled through the summer. For more information call 985-0090 or visit yogarootsvt.com or adamsberryfarm.com.

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14 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Business Business of the week: Northern Bayou Cold Brew Lynn Monty EDITOR IN CHIEF

Ben Lee, owner of Northern Bayou Cold Brew, lives in East Charlotte and has a brew facility in West Charlotte. His small team does all of the brewing, kegging and distributing. Amanda, his wife, does the labeling, bottling and vending.

His pal Justin Gonyea has been the go-to for design and branding work. We spoke with Ben on July 22.

The Charlotte News: Why cold brew?

Ben Lee: In about 2006 I found myself drinking a pretty large quantity of coffee to get me through college. After a while, it started to give me heartburn. I started to do some research and began to learn about the cold brew process and how it produced a coffee that was lower in acidity.

Coincidentally, I had become obsessed with the iced coffee from a long gone café on Newbury Street (I was going to school in Boston) called La Aroma, and I came to learn that this iced coffee was cold brewed. I started cold brewing coffee for myself at that point.

While living in Brooklyn, I saw bottles of cold brew start to pop up on specialty stores’ shelves and decided to hone my recipes for consistency. I met my wife and we moved away from the city and back to Vermont (well, I’m from Vermont, but she was new to it). There were no Vermont bottled cold brews to be found! The only bottles were from one of the New York companies, and it tasted stale and old by the time it reached Vermont. We realized the market potential for a fresh, local cold-brew coffee option and decided to start brewing, bottling and selling around the Chittenden County area in 2014.

CN: How successful is cold brew coffee in Vermont?

BL: There was a bit of an acceptance curve when we first started selling, but the Vermont audience is always welcoming to thoughtful, locally produced items.

Vermonters really started paying attention in our first year and have steadily grown to be very consistent and excited customers.

CN: How do you get the word out?

BL: We’ve been able to get the word out through a few key avenues: our weekly appearance at the Burlington Farmers Market, food shows like the annual Burlington Wine & Food festival, local collaborations (like our inclusion in the wonderful Maple Breakfast Stout by 14th Star brewing) and general word of mouth.

CN: What is notable or unique about Northern Bayou?

BL: For every batch of our cold brew coffee, we have single-origin, farm direct, organic coffee beans roasted 48 hours before we brew. This window is the ideal amount of time, in our opinion, for the bean to open up. We aim to have brilliantly bright, punchy cold brew as opposed to the results from often over-roasted, old beans used for cold brew. Additionally, we brew fresh batches several times a week and immediately hand-deliver them to our accounts. Our hope is to always have the freshest and most unique cold brew on the shelves for our customers.

CN: Can you explain the name?

BL: When my wife and I moved back to Vermont (well, I’m from here, and she is from the south) we found an old farmhouse surrounded by peeper ponds and trees. The house reminded us of her Baton Rouge roots, so we named it The Northern Bayou. We then applied the name to the company.

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Ben and Amanda Lee of Northern Bayou Cold Brew.

CN: What other products do you sell?

BL: We sell a handful of different bottled cold brews as well as those same coldbrew coffees in kegs.

CN: Where do you sell them?

BL: Every week in the summer we are set up on Main Street in City Hall Park, Burlington, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the Burlington Farmers Market. We also have our bottles for sale at many places like City Market, Heathy Living, Beverage Warehouse (Winooski) and at the Old Brick and Spears Corner in Charlotte.

Courtesy photo

CN: What’s special about doing business in Charlotte, Vermont?

BL: There’s a strong sense of support from the Charlotte community. It’s an honor to be one of the few small businesses in Charlotte!

CN: What else would you like readers to know?

BL: Visit our website, NorthernBayouColdBrew.com, and our social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) to find out more about us, our products, what we’re up to and where to find us!

The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 15

Arts Festival of Fools celebrates its 10th anniversary Marketplace throughout the and then to weekend, so CONTRIBUTOR Burlington give yourself plenty of time Twelve years ago, Woody Keppel went City Arts’ ED, to catch these to the City of Burlington with an idea that Doreen Craft, remarkable had been germinating since 1982, when, who embraced acts—pleasure just out of clown camp, he began a 25-year the idea. Today, awaits you! stint as a character clown, musician and the Festival of juggler at festivals and theaters around the Fools is widely know as one This year’s world. performance It was 1985, when Keppel began of the toplineup includes performing at craft fairs in Vermont, where fi ve busking in New York’s he fi rst shared his idea for creating a circus/ festivals vaudeville festival with Craft Producer’s, the world, as The Hokum Bros, a Charlotte-based show band, is B i n d l e s t i f f by ready for festival weekend.

Charlie Dooley. Out of their collaborative evidenced Courtesy photo Family Cirkus, Pinky Special eff orts came the “Vermont Comedy the huge crowds Festival,” held in Burlington in 1991, that enjoy these extraordinary acts and and Rob Torres; Canadians John Park, Mike Wood, The Kif-Kif Sisters, and and the Manchester “Festival of Fools,” reward them with generous tips.

As the Festival of Fools celebrates its tenth The Matt Velvet & Charlie Show; Strong in 1992. Audiences that experienced the events loved ‘em, but “busking” was not anniversary, downtown Burlington will Woman Mama Lou (Austin, Texas), Brushy yet in the local vernacular, and the cost once again provide an ideal landscape for One-String (Jamaica), Nigel Blackstorm of running a world-class event, with few three fun days of music and foolery for all (England), Kenny Raskin (Newton, sponsors and an unfamiliar public, became ages! Over the past decade, the Queen City Mass.), Mark Hayward (Wisconsin), Snap has been the meeting place for some of the Boogie (Boston), and The Hokum Bros. prohibitive.

By 2007, street theater festivals were world’s most eccentric performers whose (Charlotte). enjoying a surge in popularity across collective resumes include Broadway, The Festival kicks off with a parade Europe, Asia, Canada and the South Pacifi c, Vegas, Lincoln Center, The White House, down Church Street on Friday (5:30) with but were not yet on the public’s radar screen Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Bros., Big the cast of Fools, led by Seattle’s Tim Furst in the U.S. Keppel knew Church Street in Apple Circus, Monte Carlo and the gamut (The Flying Karamazov Brothers), and The Burlington would be a perfect location and of late night TV from Carson to Colbert. Drumatics, a marching brass band from proposed his idea, fi rst to the Church Street Over 140 performances will be presented Brooklyn. The parade will culminate with

Woody Keppel

Rec News Fall Soccer signups The soccer registration fee is $45 and the registration deadline is August 19.

After the 19th you will be charged a $25 late fee in addition to your registration.

If your athlete has a Charlotte rec T-shirt you can subtract fi ve dollars. The 6–8 graders can sign up after the Charlotte Central School team tryouts without a late fee. The season will start Saturday, September 9, and will end October 7.

Soccer practices for the teams will be set by the coaches based on their availability.

Please make a note on your child’s form if there are certain days/times your child is unavailable to practice. Registration deadline: Friday, September 1.

Game and Practice Information Pre–K and kindergarten teams will meet Saturdays mornings at 9 a.m.

1st–2nd grade teams will practice once a week with games on Saturday at 10 a.m.

3rd–8th grade teams will practice twice a week with games on Saturdays.

T-shirt Sponsorship Is your time limited? Consider having your business sponsor our recreation T-shirts. Your logo will be placed on the back of the shirts and displayed during all soccer and basketball games! For more information contact the recreation director.

performances on Main Street (blocked off ), followed by Late Night Foolery in the Metronome at 9 and 11 p.m.

Saturday’s schedule features performances from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. in City Hall Park and on Church Street Marketplace. The John Waters classic Hairspray will be shown on a big screen at the top of Church Street at nightfall.

Sunday highlights include performances on Church Street from noon until 5 p.m., and Kids Rock The Park (City Hall Park), featuring Broadway hit, Fred Garbo’s Infl atable Theater Company.

Adults and kids of all ages who want to re-charge their creative clown spirits are invited to take part in “Mr. Woodhead’s School of Foolery,” a four-hour clowning, circus and street performing workshop led by four internationally renowned instructors (free!). The Festival weekend concludes with “The Last Laugh,” highlighting the best of the fest—all on one stage in City Hall Park at 5:30 p.m.

Come witness weird and wonderful scenes of inspired silliness; feed your soul with music and laugh-’til-it-hurts comedy, all served up in downtown Burlington.

You’ll be in good company!

Charlotte Recreation has full and partial scholarships available; contact the recreation director for more details.

Volunteers needed!

Would you like to get involved with the Recreation Department, but are not sure how? Become a volunteer! Sign up for one of our volunteer opportunities listed below: • Soccer coach • Field painting • Annual Soccer Jamboree, Sept. 16 • Concession stand • Set-up and clean-up • Field preparation • Food donation Nicole Conley, recreation director Charlotte Recreation Department Phone: 425-6129 ext. 204 Email: recreation@townofcharlotte.com Website: charlottevt.org “recreation”

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16 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

HOPS FARM

CAPTAIN MIKE

continued from page 1

continued from page 1 “It’s a big change from the Friend Ship and all of the bachelor parties and large daily tours,” Captain Mike said.

“This is a nice transition. I have more personal time.”

Sailing lessons are also on the menu. Crowley is happy to share his knowledge and enthusiasm for sailing with anyone who would like to learn.

And his large bank of historical and geographical stories about Lake Champlain seem to have no end. But with a lake that’s 127 miles long and 12 miles at its widest, there’s plenty of time as he tours through its hundreds of bays and coves.

For more information visit champlainsailing.com.

SELECTBOARD

continued from page 1 Because VCLT Property and Casualty Intermunicipal Fund, the town’s insurance company, has twice denied the town’s request to cover these expenses, the cost will have to come from town money, though the specifics of the money’s source have yet to be finalized.

Murphy says the settlement marks the end of Arthaud’s association with both Thompson’s Point and the town on the matter and that he and his client are pleased with the result. “We’re glad it

The

Karen Crowley on Brizo at Point Bay Marina on July 12.

Photo by Lynn Monty came to a settlement before having to go to trial,” says Murphy The dilapidated cabin will revert to town ownership and will remain standing for the time being. Its ultimate fate remains unclear, though a number of neighbors have voiced concern about the aesthetics and safety of the camp.

Morrison says the town will have to spend time educating Selectboard members on the issue and exploring its options on what to do with the lot. “The town has a right to put a picnic table there and say it’s a public lot, access to the beach, but maybe there’s another solution, and that’s what we want to work on.”

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air quality of pesticides, and the strain on natural resources. She also worries that the erection of tall structures in front of her view may affect the resale value of her property.

Bedell is frustrated by the sudden change to the property outside her doorstep. She says that she hasn’t seen any effort by the owners of Mt. Philo Hops to mitigate her concerns and that no one has contacted her on the matter.

Other neighbors, like Peter Schubart, expressed wonderment on Front Porch Forum that “something so destructive to the local views and aesthetics can be deemed to be ‘conservation.’”

“Sometimes folks feel that conservation means that views are maintained,” said Annes. “However, in Vermont, where many people make their living off the land, and where we value local food, an agricultural easement may keep a business viable, but it may not keep a precise view intact.”

Briggs and Post say they are aware of these concerns and are happy to confer with any neighbors who have worries.

“We are very sensitive to our neighbors,” said Briggs. “Our goal is to make the farm as unobtrusive and attractive as possible.”

To this end, Briggs and Post have thought of a number of ways they hope to make neighbors feel more comfortable about the farm. The farm will be home to two large, half-million-gallon ponds to collect rainwater and runoff and ease the strain on the water table. They have also attempted to strategically place these ponds as windows of sorts to give homeowners a clear line of sight to their existing views.

Setbacks will also be observed to minimize the towering height of the trellises. From Route 7, trellises will be set back 50 feet or more, and from roads like Thompson’s Point and Palmer Lane, the setback will be about 30 feet.

Post has stuck a test pole into the crest of the small hill directly before the dip down to Palmer Lane to demonstrate the height the trellises will reach. The pole is less tall than the stand of trees growing along the edge of the property, and Post emphasized that most of the trellises will be shorter, since they won’t be on the crest.

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The Mt. Philo Hops farm will install trellises 18 feet tall to grow hops on 30 acres of land in Charlotte.

Photo by Sarah Wolverton For Post and Briggs, the piece of property along East Thompson’s Point Road combines the perfect mixture of sun, water, drainage and visibility from Route 7.

They hope to become an integral part of the thriving craft brewery industry in Vermont.

According to Briggs, Vermont breweries currently have to source their hops mainly from other states, meaning there’s a lot of value being cut out of the industry for the state.

U.S. craft beer production volume has more than doubled since 2011, according to the Brewers Association, and hopping rates are on a steady increase as well. Mt. Philo Hops is excited to capitalize on the growing industry, and Briggs hopes to be a leader in bringing more hops farmers to Vermont.

John Bethune, another Charlotte resident, pointed out that as far as agricultural development goes, hops are not the worst thing to happen to Vermont. “This is a very low impact crop,” wrote Bethune on Front Porch Forum. “Not smelly like cow manure.”

Indeed, any worry about straining the water table or use of pesticides is mostly moot, since the land in question was already being used for hay and corn production.

Post is excited to see where Mt. Philo Hops will go. “It’s a great improvement to the land,” he said. As for the height of the trellises, “we like that [the hops] have a lot of energy.”

Summer intern Sarah Wolverton was born and raised in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and moved to Charlotte two years ago. She is a rising senior at Syracuse University with a double major in magazine journalism and marketing management. She enjoys writing, reading and telling each of her three dogs that they’re her favorite.

The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 17

Paint sticks not allowed, but guns, no problem

Essential Elements

evidence of Texas seats, and we wealth and its purchased wine exhibits provocative, as Candy and humorous, startling.

Art, a local band, The Hill Country got going. Guitar, was beautiful, with bass, drums and “I was gobsmacked! old trees and rolling Candy, a young I’d read that music hills, the people warm woman whose rich and welcoming.

This sultry old-fashioned Beth Phillips was everywhere in was an enchanting voice caressed the CONTRIBUTOR Texas I never knew early evening air.

Austin, but music, existed. Everywhere As the musicians BJ arrived from Denver and I came from we saw young families performed, the good music and Vermont to visit Kay Smith. Fifteen years engaged in outdoor audience to-andago, we were colleagues at the American activities and enjoying dancing in grocery froed, buying wine, International School, Dhaka, Bangladesh. a hip urban lifestyle. ordering pizza, stores was more than Now we (three 70-year-olds) were meeting Particularly riveting fetching salads from at Kay’s house in Austin, Texas, a stone-and- were two evenings of the grocery deli.

I would even have stucco ranch house in the liberal state capital music—not in clubs, Toddlers and young of one of the America’s most conservative theaters or stadiums. children cavorted imagined.” states.

We found music in on the dance fl oor, Kay wanted us to get a taste of her part grocery stores. Central and a young mother of Texas and laid out an ambitious schedule Market, a local-ish moved to the of activities, four days that would include chain of stores— music with an hiking the Violet Crown wildlife trail and think Hannaford’s— infant on her hip. biking around, and then kayaking on Lady provides venues for local music. The market Tables of senior citizens tapped feet to the Bird Lake in downtown Austin. We’d visit is located at one end of a traditional-looking music. A middle-aged couple at the next the University of Texas’s Blanton Museum mall, and late Friday afternoon we pulled table smooched during a lovey-dovey song. of Art and ogle cowboy gear at Allens into the parking lot and walked through At the end of an hour, Candy and Art Boots. Kay’s plan included a day in the the front door, passing by a deli section off packed up their instruments, and a new Texas Hill Country, starting with a walk to to the left, a wine and beer bar, and casual group—more electronic, a little louder— Pedernales Falls, followed by a tour of LBJ’s restaurant seating before exiting a side took the stage. We ambled inside to buy boyhood home and a vineyard wine tasting, door onto a spacious deck where a band some dinner. The crowd had grown and and fi nishing up at LBJ’s “Texas White was setting up beneath a canvas canopy. tables were fi lling up. Beyond the deck was a House.” And, of course, we’d sample some The deck had picnic tables, cafe tables with children’s playground full of kids swinging, of Austin’s incomparable music. Saturday, umbrellas and a dance fl oor—beyond it was climbing, sliding and running. Young April 22, our last day in town, would be a park-like expanse. We’d entered a typical parents supervised, lounging against jungle devoted to civic protest in support of science supermarket door and exited a side door into gyms, beers in hand. More picnic and café at the state capitol. an unexpected world of music. tables were set on grass that stretched away We plunged in, hiking, biking, kayaking.

Kay spread a colorful tablecloth to claim toward magnifi cent live oaks, a pond where The impressive Blanton Art Museum is

a dad squatted at water’s edge, arm around a child, wetlands full of croaking frogs and twinkling fi refl ies, and further away, highrise apartments. A group of ten-year-olds played pick-up soccer in the gathering dusk.

The scene was simultaneously kinetic and peaceful. Above it all drifted the music that makes Austin famous.

The next evening was cool and rainy; after dinner we stopped by another of Austin’s Central Markets. This one had no outside space, but inside was café seating, a bandstand and a dance fl oor. A fi ve-piece band with a female vocalist played swing and jitterbug. The crowd of mostly older folks danced; many were good dancers with sophisticated moves who seemed like regulars here. They bantered and switched partners. When the band took a break, dancers grabbed wine at the wine bar, opened deli snacks and congregated around a few high café tables.

I was gobsmacked! The whole idea seemed so innovative and community enhancing. I’d read that music was everywhere in Austin, but music, good music and dancing in grocery stores was more than I would ever have imagined. There was so much vitality, innovation, art, urban outdoor life, and the energy of young families that I found myself falling head over heels in love with Austin!

Then something happened on Saturday morning that presented a diff erent picture of Texas. BJ and I accompanied Kay, an active and resisting Democrat, to the State Capitol building to take part in what was a nationwide protest in support of science and against climate-change deniers. Kay had

see ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS page 18

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18 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS continued from page 17 bought supplies for making protest posters that included stiff cardboard and sticks.

The sticks were lightweight, 18-inch long, three-quarter-inch wide stirrers from a paint store. The paint stirrers were attached to the posters and allowed us to hold our signs aloft and wave them.

The Saturday morning crowd was friendly and buoyant with lots of families, lots of kids. Many protesters who were working scientists wore white lab coats. Signs were humorous: Fight Climate Change or Die Frying; Science is Not an Alternative Fact; Breaking News: Science More Effective Than Magic.

Arriving early, we entered the Capitol Building, thinking to take a half-hour tour of the interior. First stop: security. Purses and backpacks on a belt for X-ray. The officer told us we could not take our signs inside. The sticks were a security issue and a danger. Carefully, we stashed our signs behind a lobby trashcan, fingers crossed they’d be there when we got back. We placed our bags on the conveyor belt and walked through the metal detector. BJ was additionally swiped with a hand wand when her bracelet set off the metal detector.

The tour, exactly half an hour long and conducted by a young woman clearly proud of her state, was interesting and informative.

Before heading back outside we cruised into a ladies room and joined the queue. Other women were attending the march and there was some chatter: “Can you believe we have to defend science?” “It’s ridiculous, I came in from Johnson City to protest.”

I piped up that I’d come from Vermont.

Another woman in the line let on how she’d visited Vermont. I noted that security had prohibited my sign with its paint-stirrer stick.

“Oh, too bad,” said another, a local gal. “If you’d carried your gun you could have brought it right in. There’s a special line with no metal detectors for

gun carriers. You pass right through.”

My jaw dropped in disbelief. Paint sticks not allowed, but guns, no problem?! Hard to imagine, almost impossible to digest. Could it be true?

Women in line shook their heads yes.

We retraced our steps to the State House lobby and retrieved our signs from behind the trash can. Not quite believing the gun information, I sidled up to a blocky, middle-aged officer, a man with the look of authority and a uniform to match, a state policeman perhaps.

“Sir, I have a question. I’m from out of state and just heard something unbelievable. Maybe you can tell me if this is true. Earlier the security folks barred me from taking this sign inside.”

He looked over my sign, shook his head yes......that stick could be dangerous.

“I understand. But is it also true that if I’d had a gun, I could have brought that into the State House?”

“Yes,” he said, shuffling his feet uncomfortably, looking away to avoid eye contact. Then his gaze snapped back to me. “As long as that gun is licensed,” he spit out triumphantly. That was it. He had the completely reasonable rational that explained the difference: a paint stirrer was dangerous whereas a gun— importantly, a licensed gun—was not.

And so I saw another side of the Lone Star State. Later, when Kay, BJ and I talked about it and mulled over the contrast between the hip, modern, cosmopolitan life on display in Austin and the knowledge that you can pack a pistol in the Capitol building, Kay made a distinction that highlighted the liberal city within a conservative state. Music in the grocery store is definitely forwardlooking Austin, while totting guns in the State Capitol is Texas, Texas, Texas!

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Tales from the past with S. Russell Williams Charlotte’s rat and cat farm

for the evening was, maybe, two dollars.

Again, be reminded that, in those days, no These tales of the past are the work of one could possibly hold a dollar’s worth of, life-long Charlotte resident S. Russell say, liverwurst sandwiches.

Williams who was born in town in 1904. Well, the thing caught on. About every Molly King is his granddaughter. This story 10 days an invitation would be issued by was first published in The Charlotte News a member of the gang for a meeting at his house. Once, a meeting was held in a heated in the 1970s.

Charlotte has always been a fairly pious greenhouse, and once or twice in cellars. and law-abiding town—as towns go. There The host was always both banker and was, however, one period which must be provider of refreshments, and practically looked back upon with shame and loathing. each time, his ill-gotten gains just about paid for his output. A It was time when a real rat and cat farm! group of otherwise

upright citizens Even though I am sure all In retrospect, it is hard operated a floating to believe how much gambling den. For this gambling was strictly pleasure people could the record, many have if their demands of the group have illegal, the police never were not too great. since renounced raided the joints.

Come For one dollar, one their evil ways, and could go to a friend’s many others have, to think of it, I seem to house and have a regrettably, died. fine evening with a During the “Great remember the whole little game to keep Depression” of the police force was present things interesting and ‘30s (19, that is), a lot of conversation, conditions were at most of the gatherings. which was equally far different from interesting. No one conditions now. ever seemed to Today, incomes are run out of wild stories of experience and high, but the necessities of life are much adventures—even if they had to make them higher. Then, incomes were extremely low, up. but the necessities were fairly low, too.

Still, money for modest pleasures had to Besides, there were always a few who give way to money for modest necessities. could cash in a chip or two on leaving, thereby cutting the cost of the evening So, fun had to be inexpensive.

One unspeakably corrupt fellow in to below a dollar. One also knew that the Charlotte owned a roulette wheel complete genial host was not going to starve to death with a set of red, white and blue poker because of his generosity. chips. Pretty they were too, those chips! Even though I am sure all this gambling One winter he invited several of his was strictly illegal, the police never raided low-down friends in for an evening of the joints. Come to think of it, I seem to low-stake gambling plus conversation, remember the whole police force was sandwiches, coffee and, probably beer. The present at most of the gatherings. Yes, I am host “banked” the game. That is, the guests sure he was. As added insurance, there was bought their chips from him. To keep the always one state senator present, as well as compulsive gamblers from mortgaging the one deacon. And no protection money had old homestead, no one was allowed to buy to be paid to the mob. more than a dollar’s worth of chips. At the If a moral can be extracted from this end of the evening the host discovered that, nefarious activity, it is that if one is simplesince all the gambling devices are rigged to minded enough, a lot of fun can be had favor the house, his personal expenditure during a depression.

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The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 19

Bradley Carleton CONTRIBUTOR

My father, Arthur Spencer, was born the eighth child in a family of 10 children that subsisted from week to week on a coal miner’s solitary income. He would climb 200 feet down into a mine shaft to help his one-legged father extract enough chunks of coal to bag, walk into town and sell in order to purchase food for the evening’s dinner. He told me he swore that his children would never suffer for lack of anything.

He set out on a course that took him to a small college in Alliance, Ohio, and on to a career in business. He started as an insurance salesman, and within his first year he sold a million dollars worth of insurance (which back then was a lot of money). He quickly learned that he was a consummate salesman and began working at a used car dealership, then purchased a small diner on the college campus. From there the entrepreneurial spirit was lit. He started working deals to purchase anything that appeared to hold a modicum of possibility of making money. He loved making deals. By the mid-1960s he had amassed a small empire of hotels, nightclubs, nursing homes and partnerships in Swiss banks—even a racehorse that was bred to a Kentucky Derby winner. He had a private plane and pilot, a big ugly green limousine, and one of the first “car phones” in the back of his Oldsmobile Ninety Eight.

Sounds materially impressive for a coal miner’s son, right? It would prove to be an ironic twist later in life that the value of all these “things” was nothing compared to what he gave as a gentleman. He had married the love of his life, the Homecoming Queen, my mother, who was a well-heeled matron of raising children. Four of us. He was jetsetting around the country and relied heavily on our mother to rear his progeny.

Then there came a time when his eldest son, an awkward, sensitive young lad, who failed miserably at team sports (even when his father owned the team), was in desperate need of a connection to find even the slightest vestige of traditional virility.

It was when I was 13 years old that he sent me to a hunters education class and gave me a Marlin model .22 caliber bolt action rifle for

Christmas. I studied that hunters ed course like it was to be my master’s thesis. I was going to be a master of my own destiny! I would learn everything I could about safety, proper etiquette, habitat, ecosystems, conservation and, yes, even hunting. I practiced in the back woods of our house in Pennsylvania, stalking rabbits and squirrels once I had received my first license.

When I had exhibited enough interest in learning to master something, I was 15. I had tried football and got creamed by the big dudes who grow in the Pittsburgh suburbs.

I had tried baseball but could not find the courage to take a swing at a ball when I was up. Basketball? Are you kidding? My seventh-grade class had kids with full beards who stood over 6 feet tall. It was hopeless.

I was a loner. But I had found my path: the outdoors.

That year my father did something extraordinary. He planned a deer hunting trip into central Pennsylvania, where he had grown up. I sat up late that night, polishing my new Marlin 30-30 and watching voluptuous snowflakes falling from the darkened sky and waiting for our departure. We had planned on a 2 a.m. start with a four-hour drive. I awakened my father around midnight telling him that the snow was coming down hard and that we had better get going now before the roads became impassable.

He steered the Olds Vista Cruiser north to Interstate 80 and slid onto the slippery snowbound surface, busting through snowdrifts as if it were nothing. This is the first time that I saw my father as my hero. We plowed east through the night, listening to an old country radio station from Wheeling, West Virginia. My father drove with the window down so he could grab the wiper blades every few minutes and bang them against the frosted windshield to rid them of the heavy flakes. He would sing along to Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and Charlie Pride—names that I didn’t know.

Six hours after we left, we pulled off the interstate and took a few back roads that I was sure would lead us closer to a tow truck. But within a half hour we plowed our way into a driveway with drifts over my waist and slammed the bow of the Vista Cruiser into a snowdrift about 20 feet from the door of an old, poorly lit log cabin.

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In memory of a wise and adventurous soul

We knocked on the door of the cabin, and as it opened pale yellow light from kerosene lanterns filled the doorway. The smell of cigar smoke, bacon, coffee and whiskey filled the night air around me. This was no place for kids. This place was a bastion of manhood— the old kind. And I was welcomed in as a man.

Now I know that by today’s standards that scene would be quickly labeled inappropriate for a young man. But society hadn’t developed into the calculating, politically correct version we have accepted today. And that is what I needed at the time. It was certainly better than getting hazed in the locker room of the high school!

The next day we stood in the woods together listening for deer. The trees were bowing down to the earth begging for mercy from the heavy snow on their boughs. Rabbits peeked out of their burrows to find a world that had miraculously been altered overnight.

The sun shone brightly, creating pillars of light through the branches, and errant flakes drifted down from the sky with rainbow-like halos surrounding them. And I had my father to myself for the first time.

We would get together every season after that until I went away to boarding school.

Eventually, I convinced my family to move to Stowe because I’d had a vision of a white mountained nirvana. We continued to hunt together each season until the family decided to move closer to New York City, where my father’s burgeoning investment business was demanding more and more of his time.

Decades later, my father having lost every penny of his fortune, I living in Vermont and he in Connecticut, I was able to lease a small and very dilapidated deer camp in Huntington. My buddies and I fixed it up with hemlock paneling, an indoor bathroom—even a hot water shower—and decorated it with random furniture found along the roadsides.

It was perfect. I invited my aging father to my camp with a few of my closest friends who comprise my inner circle. We laughed, we lied, we played cards, we swore, we drank a bit and generally asserted our God-given right to misbehave a little.

My father sat in a huge blue EZ Boy

Bradley Carleton’s father, Arthur Spencer, warms his spirit at deer camp.

Photo contributed chair with his feet propped up in front of the woodstove, and we reminisced about how we finally found our connection all those years ago. In the last three years my fathers’ health declined significantly, and he was no longer able to make the trip north.

I drove to Connecticut at the end of June to visit him in his senior home just a mile away from my youngest sister and realized that it would likely be my goodbye. He told me that his only regret was that he didn’t leave a fortune to his kids. I held his withering hand and told him that he had given me a gift far greater than money. He had given me a love of nature and a connection to him that only I will understand.

To all of us he was a gentleman, a wise and adventurous soul, a remarkably compassionate and kind person who possessed a spirit that always saw the best in everyone. But to me, he was also the man I wished to be.

I held his tender hand and whispered in his ear, “I will meet you at deer camp. You remember how to get there, right?” He squeezed my hand and mouthed, “Yes.” In his eyes I saw the pale yellow light of the doorway.

Bradley Carleton is exec. dir. of Sacred Hunter.org, a nonprofit that seeks to educate the public on the spiritual connection of man to nature and raises funds for Traditions Outdoor Mentoring.org, which mentors at-risk young men in outdoor pursuits.

20 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

Health Matters Jim Hyde

CONTRIBUTOR

Climate science is complicated. The language is arcane and foreign to most of us. It often deals with outcomes and events way in the future. Yet almost everyone agrees that the earth is warming at an accelerating rate, and the vast majority of climate scientists believe that human activity and our reliance on fossil fuels is partly, if not largely, responsible. Where scientists may disagree is mainly about the magnitude of these eff ects.

What’s startling is how much consensus and agreement there seems to be on climate change among members of the general population. Researchers at George Mason and Yale University have published a number of surveys on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about climate change yearly since 2008. The latest survey (2016) shows that 70 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening and that a majority, 53 percent, believe it’s the result of human activity.

Although two-thirds view it as a serious problem for future generations, only four in 10 people believe they will be personally threatened in their lifetimes. Now here was the shocker for me: When voters were asked prior to the 2016 election which issues were most important in making a decision on whom to vote for in the 2016 election, global warming ranked sixth among liberal Democrats, 13th among moderate/conservative Democrats, 21st

Is it time for a new climate change message? among liberal/moderate Republicans, and 23rd among conservative Republicans.

The economy was the highest priority for all four groups.

So while most Americans are “concerned” about global environmental change, for the most part they do not feel personally threatened in the near term.

Should we be surprised therefore that the Trump administration feels it has license to abandon the Paris Accords, roll back air and water regulations and open up federal lands for oil and gas exploration?

Clearly the solutions, if there are any, are maddeningly complex. But they all begin with reducing our reliance on fossil fuels for transport, electricity production, heating and manufacturing. This has meant that we are instantly up against those who are dismissive of the fossil fuel–global warming link as well as the powerful corporations that are engaged in exploring for, extracting and transporting fossil fuels around the globe.

Even in many of the most “climateskeptical” red states policymakers have discovered that sound public health arguments can be made for local communities to transition to greater use of renewable energy sources.

that are both combustion products and associated with the mining, extraction and transportation of fossil fuels.

These health threats are real. They are measurable. They aff ect people’s lives today. And as they say in all of the infomercials: “There’s more.”

Even in many of the most “climateskeptical” red states policymakers have discovered that sound economic and public health arguments can be made for local communities to transition to greater use of renewable energy sources. A recent article in Newsweek reported that many in the Great Plains states, which are suff ering from heat, drought and water shortages ascribed to climate change, are actively seeking alternative energy sources such as waste-to-energy and methane capture from landfi lls to help them manage energy costs in a sustainable way. No discussion of global climate change. They are doing it because it makes economic and public health sense. Existing climate models suggest that drought and deforestation in the Great Plains states may once again lead to conditions much like the dust bowl of the 1930s. If extreme conditions such as this materialize it is likely that the “climate-skeptics” may soon vanish from here.

I am not suggesting we turn away from global climate change advocacy or multilateral agreements. But we appear to have hit a political impasse in this country. For many the daunting nature of the challenge and its distance in the future have facilitated apathy. Changing the discussion to focus on imminent, local threats to health and well-being may just be enough to change the political calculus and bring the U.S. back in line with the rest of the world. If we can do these things, the health and economic benefi ts will be felt domestically today. The ultimate benefi ciary, however, will be the global environment.

appreciate is that fossil fuel use and its collateral impacts are a proven health Reframing the debate threat here and now.

The link between sulphur dioxides One way to gain additional traction and nitrogen oxides on the one hand in this debate is to reframe and refocus and asthma, bronchitis and pulmonary the messaging away from things that are infl ammation on the other are well too easily dismissed as “unproven” (for established in the literature. However, example, the fossil fuel–global warming most people are unaware that the small link), too far away from our everyday particles given off during combustion lives (global rather than local) and too have now been shown to increase risk of far into the future. Messages framed in acute cardiac events and cardiovascular these ways create a sense for many us disease mortality. These fi ndings received of powerlessness to aff ect any sort of widespread attention in June 2017 when meaningful change. After all, how will my both The Lancet in the U.K. and The New decision to replace all my incandescent England Journal of Medicine published bulbs with LEDs prevent the future melting large-scale studies showing increased of the Greenland glacier or the further risks of premature death and disability destruction of the ice shelf in Antarctica? from small-particle pollution, especially Taken together these factors facilitate in the elderly. A 2010 study estimated apathy and denial and give license to the that fi ne-particle pollution from coal political and corporate interests promoting plants alone in the U.S. resulted in 9,700 the continued consumption of fossil fuels. hospitalizations, 13,000 heart attacks and But what most people have failed to 20,000 premature deaths.

Most of these studies do not measure the impacts on children and infants who Jim Hyde is associate professor emeritus we know to be exquisitely vulnerable to at the Tufts University School of these pollutants. Nor do the studies cited Medicine. He lives in Charlotte. look at contamination of the air and water from mercury and other heavy metals

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The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 21

Out Takes Edd Merritt CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

When you reach the broken promised land Every dream slips through your hands And you’ll know it’s too late to change your mind ‘Cause you pay the price to come so far Just to wind up where you are And you’re still just across the borderline Across the Borderline – Ry Cooder

A fascination with slightly off center

Harrison Ford and I turn 75 this year, but that’s about where our likeness ends.

He is still moving forward in the movie business, while I’m looking backward over my life, contemplating whom I met and what I remember about them.

In doing so I am trying to recall what it was about memorable people that sticks in my mind. It turns out that most of them fell slightly off center in their personalities, purposes in life and what they did to give me that impression. It probably says as much about me as it does about them. They come in various shapes, sizes and categories of interest from New England secession, to a history of baseball, to books in which the author mixes a mulligan stew of ideas causing the reader to wonder where he gets the data to back it and, sometimes asking, “What in the world is he saying?” Let me say now that Blade Runner, one of Ford’s early movies, was based on a story by one of these eccentric people, Philip Dick – perhaps my favorite science fiction writer.

The title of his story upon which Blade Runner was based was “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Irony is a major technique that Dick used. As Ford hangs off a building roof by his fingertips, he is saved by the very android he is supposed to kill. Dick’s replicant, in fact, has human characteristics such as mercy, in addition to a human body. Dick is off center from many current sci-fi writers who bring charging robots, dragons and all sorts of non-human characters into their stories. He, instead, made you feel you were reading about a current situation until, that is, it turned slightly askew of present reality. His book, The Man in the High Castle, depicts an America in which Germany and Japan won World War II. But, wait, there’s this guy Hawthorne Abendsen who lives in a guarded estate in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and has written a book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy about an alternate universe in which Germany lost WW II. In Dick’s story, the Germans burned Abendsen’s novel.

How about someone else off center?

My secessionist writer and friend Thomas Naylor was a resident of Charlotte until his death five years ago. He led the charge for our state and whoever wanted to join us, to pull out of the union and form our own nation-state that focused on community, local control, local resources and the needs of a smaller group of people than the current U.S. population. Our country as it is presently configured, he believed, was too big for the good of many of its citizens. Since Thomas’ death the current state of the nation does not show a great deal of improvement, and secession may be a possibility. (I want you to know I’m writing this piece wearing my “Get the U.S. Out of Vermont” T-shirt.)

Naylor had a number of believers who joined him, not the least of whom was Rob Williams, at the time a yak farmer and co-author with Ron Miller of the book on Vermont titled, Most Likely to Secede with a sub title reading, “What the

Vermont Independence Movement Can Teach Us about Reclaiming Community and Creating a Human-Scale Vision of the 21st Century.” “Human scale” seems to be a positive description of what the secessionists would like to see in a new nation state.

And secession may seem an unusual cause for Naylor, given his own upbringing, scholarship and 24 years on the Duke University faculty in the economics department. He grew up in Mississippi and considered his father a racist. Following higher education at major universities, he joined the faculty at Duke. After serving as president of a computer software firm, he turned to international management consulting, during which time he traveled to the Soviet Union. It is quite likely that it was there he developed an interest in separation of countries from a large union. He was an early predictor of the unexpected changes in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European counterparts, comparing its status to America that he felt was in a similar situation and should consider sizing down – hence the Second Vermont Republic.

Our current president’s political agenda, according to an article in a January 11 Seven Days, could speed up the secessionist move. The economics of a separate country are yet to be worked out. However, a smaller base would allow funds to be kept and used locally rather than sent on to large corporate powers.

The third off-center memory happens to be about a relative, my Uncle George Herter, an author of bizarre books and someone that nine years ago, the New York Times called “The Oddball Know-It-All.” His book titled Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices lays real charge to the word “authentic” and what the Times called, “one of the greatest oddball masterpieces in this or any other language.” Whether it was Queen Mary of Britain’s taste for creamed spinach,

George’s co-authorship with his son Jack Herter, Jr. — of which I know no Jack Herter, Sr. — or Charlemagne’s invention of sauerbraten, George knew it all and wrote confidently of its history. He also became famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view) for taking over his father’s clothing goods store in Waseca, Minnesota, and turning it into a sellanything mail order house. Focusing on sporting goods, Herter’s soon branched into areas that were only peripherally sport related.

My fourth off-center memory is about my father’s friend Bill Veeck, a gamesman and major league baseball team owner who really knew the meaning of the phrase, “sports are meant to be fun.”

Did you ever hear of Eddie Gaedel? He was a baseball player who went straight to the St. Louis Browns on August 19, 1951, made one at-bat, walked on four consecutive pitches, was replaced by a pinch runner and left the team the same day. Eddie hit right handed, threw left handed and stood three feet seven inches tall. He was one of Veeck’s publicity stunts. Another, which in point of fact was more for good pitching than for publicity, involved a tall African American who was called the “greatest pitcher ever excluded from Major League Baseball,” Satchel Paige. Veeck brought him to the Cleveland Indians a year after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. People, including Satchel himself, were uncertain exactly how old he was. The nearest guess was “around 40.” He pitched in 21 games his first year, his record standing at 6 wins and only a single loss by mid-season.

I have other off-center acquaintances I’m sure, and it is fun to pressure your brain into remembering exactly what gave them that slightly East-of-Eden character. I’d say it was hops. What do you think?

Puzzle SOLUTIONS ON PAGE 23 Across 1. Elbows and shells 6. Kind of seal 10. Importune 14. “Not ___!”

15. Bad spots?

16. Some injections 17. Office accessory 20. Contribute 21. Speck 22. Unskilled 23. ___ for impact 25. Cost of living?

26. A constellation 28. Viewable 32. Editor Harold 34. Brain wave 35. Day ___ 38. Office accessory 42. College major 43. Light biscuit 44. Kind of gun 45. In a vigorous manner, in music 48. Bill collector?

49. A-line line 51. Digital tome

53. Capital city 55. Not busy 56. Cousin of an ostrich 59. Office accessories 62. Kind of arch 63. Blackthorn 64. Related maternally 65. Cousin of a gull 66. Priestly garb 67. Dallied (with) Down 1. Sobriquet for Haydn 2. Mellowed 3. Smoothing machine 4. Idiosyncrasy 5. True inner self 6. Go fast 7. Tummy trouble 8. H.S. biology topic 9. Make waves 10. Online newsgroup system 11. Circulating enzyme 12. Distinguished 13. Count, now 18. Venues

19. “___ Love,” Denver song 24. Captain, e.g.

26. Sacred Hindu writings 27. At any point 29. Moore documentary 30. Bachelor’s last words 31. Nonpareil 33. Goiters 35. Compensation from union funds 36. Clap 37. Organic radical 39. Sharer’s word 40. Chi follower 41. ___ snuff 45. Attach 46. People 47. Mitch Miller’s instrument 49. ___ of Vicksburg 50. Dimethyl sulfate, e.g.

52. Young but wise one?

53. Smudge

54. Celestial bear 55. Kind of appeal 57. Parcel

58. Kind of car 60. Certain turn 61. Sean ___ Lennon

***

22 • July 26, 2017 • The Charlotte News

THE FARM SERIES Welcome to Stony Loam Farm

the housing covered. Dave researched how to appraise a farm for rental, reached an agreement with Jay and Marcia at Editor’s note: In an effort to support Bingham Brook, and Stony Loam Farm local farmers the Charlotte Grange has was born, circa 2002. Quickel was back volunteered to feature a new farm story in the farming business, this time his own each month in The Charlotte News. Here business, albeit on rented land. is part three of the series. Enjoy!

Knowing he wanted his “own” farm, Dave started talking with Clark Hinsdale, He came to Vermont to attend UVM, who had purchased the Sheehan farm on graduating with a political science Hinesburg Road. Good location, enough degree. Now what? Dave Quickel knew land, and Hinsdale was willing to work he wanted to do something he could feel with Dave and the Charlotte Land Trust good about and something that would to conserve the land, making it aff ordable have a positive impact on his world. He for Dave and his wife, Emma, to buy. tried various jobs and even considered Stony Loam Farm, with a small sign studying environmental law. Karma sporting a carrot at the driveway to their intervened—the summer before law home and CSA pickup location, has school started he worked on a farm—and evolved since moving to its permanent farming clicked. location. Initially, all crops were fi eld Initially, Dave worked at Bingham grown and hand planted, with the CSA Brook Farm, then moved out west and the Shelburne Farmers Market the where he farmed on rented land, sold major markets for the produce. Dave, at a farmers market and started a small with some help, did the daily planting and community-supported agriculture was totally dependent on the rain gods for (CSA) program, then a new concept. On watering those crops. returning to Vermont, he brought the CSA Today, the sign is still there, still idea with him. Jay and Marcia Vogler, sporting a carrot, and the CSA pickup owners of Bingham Brook, liked the is still in the same place. But the CSA is idea; soon Dave was running that farm no longer the major outlet for the farm’s and launching a successful CSA here in produce. As more CSAs formed and Charlotte. he hit a ceiling in the number of CSA The dream was not yet fulfi lled. He memberships, Dave needed to develop wanted his own farm and business, but the a new market for the farm. Returning to time wasn’t right. He left farming, moved the grocery stores where he wholesaled to Massachusetts and began taking down lettuce from Bingham Brook when he old barns, salvaging what was reusable. fi rst farmed here, he learned that no one Karma was still working. A Charlotte had fi lled that void in his absence. He group concerned about access to locally began wholesaling lettuce again and also produced food contacted him. They asked wholesales tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, what was preventing him from returning colored peppers, zucchini and squash. to Charlotte and farming. Easy answer: His focus at the Farmers Market land and an aff ordable place to live. changed as he watched more farms come Bunky Bernstein and Carol Hanley had to the market, all carrying the same

Trina Bianchi

CONTRIBUTOR

Farm fresh and vine ripe

Blueberries after the rain in Charlotte.

Photo by Lynn Monty

Stony Loam has a machine transplanter, which gives Dave Quickel the ability to plant four 500-foot beds of vegetables in two hours instead of four. And they do it sitting down instead of on hands and knees.

Courtesy photo products. He noticed that customers were looking for things to eat while they shopped. He made egg sandwiches with kale and cheese at home—why not try that at the market? At the time he raised chickens, so eggs were no problem, and he had plenty of kale, so this was an easy and successful transition. Stony Loam no longer has chickens but still attracts great karma, and eggs always seem to make their way to the farm in time for the Saturday market.

Today, ten or so acres of vegetables are grown at Stony Loam, including in seven greenhouses fi lled with peppers, tomatoes, kale and spinach. The farm has drip irrigation in all the greenhouses and irrigation for all the fi eld crops, using water from a new drilled well.

Now Stony Loam has a machine transplanter, giving Dave the ability to plant four 500-foot beds of vegetables in two hours instead of four. And he does it

sitting down instead of on his hands and knees.

Finally, Dave’s relationship with the farm has changed. He used to do everything alongside the folks working on the farm, showing them what he wanted done and explaining why. Now Neil Dominieki, who has been with Dave for seven years, has assumed that role, giving Dave the opportunity to be the planner and problem solver for the farm, a role he is enjoying.

Asked why he loves farming, Dave responded, “It’s a rush! It’s really fun; there are things you can control and things you can’t control, and you need to fi gure out how to take advantage of the little opportunities you have, go with the fl ow, with the challenges you face, and make all of that work, year after year.”

To see Dave’s face when he says this, you know he is doing what he loves!

The Charlotte News • July 26, 2017 • 23

Senior Center News

Reach your friends and neighbors for only $7 per issue. (Payment must be sent before issue date.)

Please limit your ad to 35 words or fewer and send it to The Charlotte News Classifieds, P.O. Box 251, Charlotte, VT 05445 or email ads@ thecharlottenews.org.

Mary Recchia CONTRIBUTOR

Arlene Baird, a North Hero summer resident for 30 years, invites you to view her collection for the August Art Exhibit at the Senior Center. Arlene captures our mood in her beautiful realism and dreamlike oil paintings and watercolors. Arlene’s inspiration comes from the beauty that surrounds her: nature, animals or just the odd building that has seen better days.

New session added. Are you ready for an active summer? Join Ginger Lambert for Fitness for Every Body on Tuesday mornings from 9:15–10 for the month of August. Using timed intervals and a series of stations this class will incorporate body weight, light weights and other cardio/ strength building tools to boost strength, cardiovascular fitness, agility and flexibility.

Joint and ligament issues will be taken into account. Every exercise can be modified for any ability or level of fitness. If you have been looking for a class that challenges you but doesn’t leave you in the dust, then this is for you. Registration necessary. Limit 10.

Fee: $10 per class.

Celebrate summer with a sumptuous Tea Luncheon centered around summer and the garden with Liz Fotouhi and Friends on Friday August 4 from 11:30–1:30. While delighting in fragrant tea, savory treats and sweet confections we will welcome

Summer house cleaning available Honest, dependable, and reasonable rates. Call or text 802-349-9775. Please call me at the number listed with any questions.

Celebrating Nancy Martin’s birthday on board with cupcakes. Courtesy photo and celebrate the warm days of summer and all its glory, particularly in the garden through some of our favorite poets.

Share your favorite poem about summer or the garden. It can be a poem from a beloved poet or one you have penned yourself; all are welcome, dress is casual.

Registration necessary. Max. 24. Suggested donation: $5.

The next Birding Expedition with Hank Kaestner will be on Wednesday, August 23.

Please meet at the Center at 9 a.m. so we can carpool together to the location Hank has scouted for spectacular bird watching.

Good views are guaranteed through Hank’s “Oh my God” telescope. Register for this event, so if we have to change the date due to bird migration or weather, we can call

Community Events Mozart festival: The Vermont Mozart Festival will hold concerts at Charlotte Town Beach on July 27 and August 3, each at 7 p.m. There will be a parking fee. For more information email info@vermontmozartfestival.org.

Rover visit: The Rover, CSWD’s mobile hazardous-waste collection unit, will be in town from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 29.

Bring your household hazardous waste to the Charlotte Central School west parking lot. A wide variety of household hazardous waste will be accepted at no charge from Chittenden County residents only. Business waste will not be accepted. Hazardous waste includes any unused product that is poisonous, reactive, corrosive or flammable.

You can easily identify hazardous products by reading packaging labels. For a complete listing of what to bring to the Rover, please see cswd.net/hazardous-waste/.

Blood Drive: The Charlotte Senior Center hosts the American Red Cross blood drive on Thursday, August 4, from 2-7 p.m. at the center. Walk-ins welcome; appointments can be made by calling the Red Cross at 1-800-RED-CROSS. Reunion: A Red Balloon reunion will take place at 4 p.m. at the Red Balloon on 3998 Greenbush Road on Aug. 5. It is a potluck—please pass the word to Red Balloon students, parents, families and teachers.

RSVP to barbara.jean.lawrence@gmail.com or call 425-3068.

Classifieds

Free market: Spear’s Corner Store is having its first “Free Market on the Green” from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Aug. 19. This oncea-summer event will be a yard sale / free market for anyone wanting to sell anything from jams and crafts to the last bit of goods that didn’t make your spring yard sale. To register, email Emily at ejadsit@gmail.com.

Twenty spots are available and the deadline is Aug. 12.

Summer tai chi: Open to all adults whether beginners or advanced. Designed to keep you engaged and current in your practice. All programs offer a falls-prevention component and are safe for persons with inflammatory joint conditions. These will be held on Mondays from 10 to 11 a.m. through Aug. 14 at the Charlotte Congregational Church. To register please contact Mary West at (802) 922-0498 or email igolflikeagirl@gmail.com.

Music: Morning Music for Little Farmers at Philo Ridge Farm from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 19. This event is part of Vermont Open Farm Week, a statewide event that provides a behind-the-scenes look into Vermont’s vibrant working agricultural landscape. Rain or shine, advance tickets are encouraged. For more information call (802) 735-6904.

Museum: The Charlotte Museum, on the corner of Church Hill Road and Hinesburg Road, will be open from 1 to 4 p.m. each Sunday through Aug. 26. New exhibits this year include a recently acquired portrait of

you. Registration necessary. No fee.

Calling all creative spirits! The Senior Center Community Art Show, now in its 11th year, has become a favorite among our community of artists. The show will be held during the month of September and is open to everyone 50 years old or older.

All mediums are welcome, and we will have a two-piece limit so everyone will have a chance to see their work displayed in the Great Room. Registration forms with specific details are available on the foyer table, and the deadline for submitting is Friday, August 25. Mark your calendars and join us for a reception for the artists, friends and relatives on Wednesday, September 27 at 1 p.m.

Henry and Elizabeth (Palmer) Thorp, who at one time owned the Thorp Barn in the Charlotte Park & Wildlife Refuge, as well as information and early photographs of the Prindle family, one of Charlotte’s significant early families. This includes Cyrus Guernsey Pringle, renowned botanist who chose to use the old-fashioned surname spelling.

For further information, contact Dan Cole at (802) 425-3105 or email at colelogcabin@ gmavt.net.

Bake-off: A maple-themed bake-off is scheduled to happen at the East Charlotte Tractor Parade on Oct. 8, hosted by Spear’s Corner Store. Bakers are urged to sign up now. Visitors are the judges who will vote on their favorite baked good from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Maple syrup (or flavor) must be an ingredient in the baked good. Please register with Emily at ejadsit@gmaill.com. Deadline is Oct. 1.

Please email Lynn@TheCharlotteNews. org to list your community event.

ANSWERS TO THIS ISSUE’S PUZZLES FROM PAGE 21:

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Redstone: Affordable small office spaces available on Ferry Rd. Starting at $250.00 including all utilities. For more information or to schedule a tour call 658-7400.

Interior and Exterior Painting If you’re looking for quality painting with regular or low voc paints and reasonable rates with 35 years of experience call John McCaffrey at 802-999-0963, 802-338-1331 or 802-877-2172.

Mt. Philo Inn A unique hotel situated at the base of Mt. Philo State Park with stunning panoramic views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.

Spacious 3 bedroom suites with 2 bathrooms and a complete kitchen. Thoughtfully designed for casual elegance. Privacy, space and tranquility. Bigger on the inside. MtPhiloInn. com 802-425-3335.

Does your home need a fresh coat of paint or brand new color? Lupine Painting can help with any of your painting needs. 20+ years of stress-free painting. Call for a free consultation (802)598-9940.

Tree Service. Lot clearing. Tree and brush removal. Local and fully insured. Call Bud 802734-4503.

Offices For Rent in West Charlotte village, SW corner of Greenbush and Ferry. Lake views, basic Internet included, common kitchen, deck and showers, $300-$525/month, contact 802318-6228 or 2848.Greenbush@gmail.com.

Services: GARDENING. Could you use some help with your garden? Sunnyside Gardener is now open for the season. We can assist you with planting, weeding, edging, mulching, vacation watering and care. Now in our ninth year of operation. Master Gardener trained.

Call 864-3268.

FOR SALE: HORNBECK KEVLAR KAYAK: 14ft two person, weight 25lbs, Excellent condition $1,000.00 ELECTRIC BIKE: 7 Speed Via Rapido electric bike with “twist and go” feature that turns bike into moped (no peddling). MINT CONDITION $500.00 2 KAYAK PADDLES: 1 Weaver $75.00, 1 Hobie $50.00 Call Bill at 802878-2381.

Take a ferry ride to Essex, NY. 38th Annual Downtown Essex Day - town wide market day.

Sat. Aug. 5th, 10 am-4pm. Rain or shine. Farm products, art, antiques, free kid’s art class & more! 518-963-7494.

REMEMBER The Date - REMEMBER Them GENEALOGY//DAY is always August 9th and is open to the community. This traveling exhibit will be in Vergennes at Ken. Bros. noon until 8 pm.

Even if you can’t attend, mark your calendar(s) for this new holiday. finalfreedom.om/genealogy Ceal is Host & Proud VT - FCGS Member

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