January 2025 - Winter Arrives

 Our first measurable snowfall here in Vermont was on Thanksgiving Day.  It began in the morning, just as we were starting our three hour drive to Spencer, Massachusetts, for Thanksgiving dinner and an overnight stay at John's brother's house.  

I learned long ago that John will drive in just about any conditions (in the midst of the Blizzard of 1978, while the rest of the state was shut down, he and his buddies took to the highways to head north for skiing).   I also learned that, in the interest of marital preservation, I'm better off keeping my mouth shut and my head down, focusing on reading in the car to keep from repeatedly slamming my foot on that imaginary brake pedal at my feet.

I-91 South in Vermont on Thanksgiving morning: note that we're in the passing lane, as we were for most of the trip

Ironically, the snow turned to rain just as we crossed the state line into Massachusetts; it was as if the state had put up an invisible barrier.  

We returned home the next day to 6 inches of the white stuff on the ground - a good start to the winter season!  The following morning gave us a beautiful progression of sunrise photographs, taken about 15 minutes apart.

Smaller snowfalls over the next few weeks made for some peaceful morning hiking and snowshoeing - a perfect calming way to start the day during an otherwise busy time of year.  

And so, I leave you with some pictures from those morning treks...

Unfortunately, the warm rainy weather of the last few days has set us back, and the countryside this morning (December 31) looks a lot like Mud Season.....

AH, but who knows what's in store - the winter, like the year, is still young!

December 2024 - Holiday Bazaars & Christmas Markets

 

Artisan Holiday Market in Randolph

Here in Randolph, the first Saturday of December is traditionally the day when churches and other organizations in town have their Christmas bazaars - each with its own unique focus.  

The Congregational Church has a Peace Fair and Christmas market which includes their famous "cookie walk": $10 gets you an empty bakery box that you fill with your own selection of home-made goodies.   

The Episcopal Church sells wreaths and tickets for their "Chinese auction" - for $1, you get ten chances to win prizes ranging from gently-used household items to re-gifted toys and knick-knacks to hand-made hats and gloves.    

The Catholic Church goes all out with booths rented out to local crafters and vendors (even Tupperware!); the Knights of Columbus sell tickets for their 50-50 raffle; and there are plenty of baked goods to take home and freeze in anticipation of holiday guests.  

The Rotary Club is selling gift baskets of maple syrup and locally made soaps and candles.  Even the Friends of the Library will host a Holiday Bazaar with the sale of crafts and used books, and a raffle of several book-themed gift baskets (the coordination of the library event is keeping me busy this week!).  

Also worth a stop is the Artisan Holiday Market at the Chandler Center for the Arts in the center of town.  The market continues throughout the month of December and is a lovely place to shop for some locally crafted gifts.

As in past years, this coming Saturday in our little town promises to be a great day to walk around on Main Street with a few dollars in your pocket to support the community and perhaps even catch a lunch of home-made soup and bread at one of the churches. 

Library raffle - just one of the offerings in town this Saturday

It's a tradition repeated throughout the world this time of year, in small towns and in big cities.

There are any number of websites to visit and tour groups to choose from if you want to see how the season is celebrated in cities in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Poland, Germany, France, and many other countries.  According to one source, here are the top 100: CLICK HERE for some snapshots and to perhaps start planning your travels for next December.

Photo credit: Rick Steve

If you can't make the trip yourself, there is always Rick Steves; if you have an hour or so, you can watch his video of Christmas markets throughout Europe by CLICKING HERE.

My favorite remains the "Szopka" (creche) display in  Krakow, Poland.  The annual competition takes place in the medieval city's "Rynek" main square, and the elaborate Szopki look more like castles than the traditionally rustic Christmas manger scenes.   A full description of the event and a short film can be found that THIS LINK. 

Krakow Szopka Competition

One of these days, perhaps I'll get there to see it in person, but in the meantime, I was happy to find a display closer to home last month when SS Cyril & Methodius Church in Hartford had its annual Christmas bazaar:

Szopka Competition in Hartford

The holiday season is ramping up, but will be over before we know it.  I hope that it's a season of peace and joy for all of you.   We'll see you in 2025!

November 2024 - Judy Stonger

 

Judy Stonger, receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award

Well, as it turns out, today is Judy Stonger's birthday ---- but that's not why she's being featured here. 

Many of you may not have had the privilege of working with Judy at HSD in the late 1970's to 1980's.   She left I/T to pursue a completely different career in the field of mental health. 

Judy retired earlier this year after more than 24 years with the Wheeler Clinic in Connecticut.  While there, she rose to the position of Vice President of Prevention, Wellness, and Recovery.  

Several weeks ago, she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS).

In Judy's own words:

"I was invited to the CT Prevention Conference for lunch and was extremely humbled to be awarded a Lifetime Achievement award by my friends and colleagues at DMHAS. I even received a lovely standing ovation by a packed ballroom. I am very blessed, and have a full and grateful heart. Thank you, one and all, for a day that I will always remember and cherish. "

To read a tribute to Judy on the Wheeler Clinic website regarding her retirement, CLICK HERE. 

CONGRATULATIONS, JUDY! 

ENJOY MANY YEARS OF RETIREMENT!

October 2024 - Saint Gaudens National Park

Boston: Tribute to the Union Army's 54^th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment

 

As you read this, we're entertaining out-of-state friends who are up for their annual Fall Foliage visit.  I'm writing this ahead of time on Sunday (9/29), anticipating Monday's arrival of John's former UTC co-workers and long time friends Ed & Sue Shaw and Steve & Terri DesRoches.  The plan for Tuesday is a round of golf for the men while we women tour Saint-Gaudens National Historic Park in Cornish NH.

I wrote about Saint-Gaudens NHP here about ten years ago, but it's worth another visit.   It was the home of 19th century sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907).  Born in Dublin, Ireland, he first visited Cornish NH in 1885 and eventually purchased the property that became his year-round home and the home of the Cornish Art Colony.  The property, now owned and managed by the National Park Service, is about two hours from Windsor Locks – an easy day trip and a lovely destination for a sunny afternoon.  The grounds feature his home and studio; replicas of some of his well-known works are scattered throughout.

If you’re not a close follower of art or don’t live in the upper valley of the Connecticut River, you may never have heard of Saint-Gaudens – but you may have seen his art, which includes:

"Diana" atop the old Madison Square Garden

 “Diana”: sent to Chicago in 1892 to adorn the Women’s Pavilion at the 1893 Columbian Exposition - until members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union protested the nude figure, after which Diana was banished to  the roof of the Agricultural Pavilion.  The statue was destroyed in a fire after the Exposition closed, but in 1893 Saint-Gaudens produced another Diana, smaller and lighter, commissioned to serve as the weathervane atop the original Madison Square Garden.  When the old Madison Square Garden was torn down in 1925, Diana retired from civil service and has since resided at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

"Standing Lincoln"

 “Standing Lincoln”:  Augustus Saint-Gaudens was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln, and in the 1880’s won a design competition to create a statue of the President for Chicago’s Lincoln Park.   When the 12-foot bronze Lincoln was unveiled in 1887, the New York Post described it as “the most important achievement American sculpture has yet produced”.  A copy of the statue also stands near Westminster Abbey in London.  

 

Statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman in Central Park

Closer to home, the artist’s gilded statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman greets visitors to New York’s Central Park at the Grand Army Plaza on Fifth Avenue.  The statue recently underwent a two-million dollar renovation due in part to the city’s "pigeons of Grand Army Plaza - among the shrewdest, toughest birds in America". 

Saint-Gaudens was a master not only of sculpture, but also of bas-relief.  Across the street from Boston’s State House is his tribute to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54^th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, unveiled in 1897 (see picture at the top of this story).  

The 54^th was the first African American regiment assembled in the North during the Civil War.  Sergeant William Carney of that regiment was the first African American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.   Saint-Gaudens’ memorial depicts Shaw and his men as they marched down Beacon Street to head South to battle. Their story was the subject of the 1989 Denzel Washington/Matthew Broderick film “Glory”. 

One of Saint-Gaudens’ final efforts came in 1904 at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt, who asked the sculptor to design the U.S. $10 and $20 gold coins.  The coins were issued just a few months after the artist’s death in 1907 and continued to be minted until 1933.  The $20 double eagle coin remains one of the most valuable for collectors.

Another famous name associated with the Cornish Art Colony was painter Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) 

Parrish was born in Philadelphia but settled in Plainfield, New Hampshire, adjacent to Cornish – no doubt finding inspiration in the surrounding countryside. Nearby Mt. Ascutney in Vermont, visible from Cornish, served as the backdrop in many of his paintings.  The cobalt blue hues he used in his fanciful interpretations of the sky have been dubbed “Parrish blue”.

His paintings are on display in places like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, but have also appeared in children’s books and on magazine covers.  Perhaps one of his most famous or familiar paintings is "Daybreak", painted in 1922.  

For more about the Saint-Gaudens National Park, see their website HERE.

September 2024 - Cape Cod

This past weekend, just as we've done for most of the last 20 years or so, we spent Labor Day weekend visiting friends at their home on Cape Cod.  

It was a great relaxing time ---- and my excuse for not writing anything this month!  Instead, I'm just posting some pictures.

These last pictures are from a hike we took along Fort Hill Trail in Eastham, including the lovely patch of poison ivy that we happened upon.  Fortunately, no ill effects reported from any of our group.

See you next month!

August 2024 - Vermont Floods & Other Things

 

I usually try to come up with a topic a couple of weeks before the NFTH comes out.  With parts of Vermont inundated by torrential rains on July 10 and again on July 30, I thought I had found this month's story.  But the appearance of Hurricane Debby has certainly taken over the weather news.  I had to tweak the focus of what I had already written.

It’s an understatement to say that the weather has been making headlines across the country in the last few weeks and months.  Record heat in the southwest, fires all up and down the west coast, and the hurricane season just getting underway.  Not weather-related, there was also the unexpected eruption of the Black Diamond pool at Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago that sent tourists running for cover (LINK).

Yellowstone Hydrothermal Explosion July 23

In the past, we’ve generally felt pretty safe from the extremes here in Vermont, aside from the occasional blizzard and of course Mud Season.  With no ocean coastline, we're not immediately concerned with rising sea-levels, and hurricane winds generally fizzle out before they get here.  Add in the fact that we’re far from tornado alley, not particularly earthquake prone, and nowhere near the Pacific “ring of fire”. 

Our sense of security was only reinforced in 2020 when the independent ProPublica published a county-by-county climate study of the entire United States, and came to the statistical conclusion that the safest place to live in the coming century will be.... Lamoille County (Stowe area) in Vermont.  Orange County (our fair town of Randolph) ranked second.  

The study was based on several factors, including heat, sea-level rise, fire potential, and economic damage.  Curious as to where your particular county rates, based on the ProPublica statistic?   Click on THIS LINK and scroll all the way to the bottom of the story.   

Back to Vermont, I can't help but wonder how those statistics would differ if taken after the sporadic but increasingly more frequent rain storms of the past two summers.   

A storm on July 10, 2023 brought up to 9 inches of rain over 48 hours to some areas of Vermont. Downtown Montpelier - unfortunately built along the banks of a river – was flooded completely and took months to return to normal. 

While 9 inches may not seem excessive, Vermont’s hilly terrain serves to turn any gentle stream into a roaring “power-wash” that undermines bridges and surrounding roadways.   And so, history repeated itself this year in July - both on the anniversary of last year's flooding and again on July 30.  The very localized nature of that storm meant that, while St. Johnsbury (50 miles away) got 8 inches of rain in 3 to 4 hours, here in Randolph we had barely an inch.

Downtown Montpelier during the post-flooding clean-up last summer

The rainfall totals for Florida and the Carolina's as a result of Hurricane Debby are just coming in -- in measures of feet, not inches.  I hope that those of you living in those areas have stayed relatively dry on higher ground.  

Meanwhile, the Vermont Emergency Management Team has put out the following warning for our region and the rest of the East Coast.  I hope I don't have to write about Vermont flooding next month.

P.S.  Another thing to worry about: just the other morning I saw an article about "Apophis", an asteroid roughly 1,000 feet in diameter, that will come within 20,000 miles of the Earth's surface on (I'm not making this up) Friday the 13th, in April 2029.  Read about it at THIS LINK.

Maybe rising sea levels will be the least of our problems.

July 2024 - Maine

Camping, 2024 (Maine): "Roughing it"

Early last month, we got the RV out for a week-long trip through Maine, with the target destination of Campobello Island just over the border in New Brunswick.   It was the perfect time to travel, before the summer heat and crowds.

Sunny skies surrounded us as we drove along Vermont and New Hampshire backroads to the first day's destination of Conway NH.  After a little retail therapy at the outlets, we settled in at the RV park there.  

Of course, it seems that every trip has one or two bumps in the road....

Those sunny skies gave way to rain overnight.  It was warm and dry in the RV, but there's no huddling indoors when travelling with dogs.  So, while John slept in the next morning, I started out my day with a walk around and around the campground with Zoey and Roxy, who seemed to have forgotten what they were out there to do.  Two wet dogs, eight dirty paws, two soaked sneakers, and 2,000 steps (according to my Timex) later, they finally did their business and we headed back to the RV.   I looked forward to a nice hot cup of coffee, only to find that our little Keurig coffee maker (yah, we're roughing it) had bitten the dust, first spouting coffee all over the counter, and then refusing to work at all.  

I'll skip the rest of the details, but we finally got everything cleaned up, had breakfast, stopped at McDonald's for coffee, and were on the road for the day - with a detour through Augusta to pick up a replacement Keurig at Walmart.  

All that behind us, the rest of the week went smoothly, and we made our way up towards Lubec.

Better start on day 2: Dawn in Ellsworth Maine

Why Lubec?   For one, it's the eastern-most town in the United States.  

Bridge and border crossing from Lubec Maine to Campobello New Brunswick

More to the point, it's just across the narrow Lubec Channel which connects Maine to Campobello Island, New Brunswick - the summer vacation home of President Franklin Roosevelt.  Now Roosevelt Campobello International Park, it's where FDR woke up one morning at age 39, suddenly paralyzed from contracting polio.

We enjoyed a tour of the 34 room "cottage", and then drove around the rest of the island, with its light houses and scenic views of the Atlantic.

Back across the bridge in the U.S., we visited the West Quoddy Lighthouse, the easternmost point in the United States.

Easternmost point in the U.S: 44°48′54.4″N 66°57′1.7″W

The rest of our week was a relaxing meander back home, with stops in Belfast, Camden, and Freeport Maine.   But the most memorable aspect of the trip were the beautiful Maine sunrises.....

...sunsets....

...and ubiquitous lupines:

We're already planning a return next year, with more time way up there in Downeast Maine, and more exploration of the islands around New Brunswick.

* * * * *

When we bought our RV and took it out for our first trip in 2006, it had been twenty plus years since we had been to any campgrounds.  We were surprised then at how things had changed over the years – fewer tent sites and more mega-RVs.   

On this trip, I reflected on those earliest trips 40-50 years ago, when we packed tents, sleeping bags, coolers, camp stoves, lanterns, picnic baskets, and duffle bags into the trunk of our car.  I can’t quite believe how we actually washed our dishes in plastic tubs with water heated over the Coleman stove, and how we put up with rain and other weather conditions with just a thin nylon tent. 

Camping, 1983 (New Brunswick): no Keurig coffee maker!

For many folks, the thought of camping in an RV, with all the comforts of home, is still just too primitive to consider.  But for many in this world and throughout history, the simple shelter of a tent - let alone a vacation - would seem the ultimate in comfort and luxury.  

A dysfunctional coffee pot and a little wet weather while enjoying a tour of some of the scenic coast of Maine: truly a "First World Problem".   Who am I to complain?