Around Town – Jan. 23, 2019
to former Charlotte residents Becca von Trapp Muller and her husband, Rye Muller, on the birth of their second son, Oakley Orion Muller, on October 16, 2018.
Discussions continue on Mason–Von Trapp sketch plan
The Jan. 3 Planning Commission meeting focused primarily on the Mason–Von Trapp sketch plan agenda item, with Chair Peter Joslin opening with an explanation of the intent of the sketch plan discussion: to listen to the ideas put forth by the applicants with a resulting recommendation from the commission. After nearly two hours of discussion from various meeting attendees, the commission scheduled a follow-up site visit and will include the item on a future agenda in February.
Food Shelf News
We wish Happy Holidays to the generous Charlotte community. Fitting for the season, our list of special thanks…
Around Town – Nov. 28, 2018
Former Charlotte resident Erica Heilman created a podcast titled “Rumble Strip Vermont” five years ago, and through it she has gained a wide reputation. She currently is leading a seven-part series exploring the state of mental health care around us. Erica moderates the series with episodes using personal stories from inside the state’s mental health care system to look at a variety of topics, such as home environments, parenthood (particularly of adult sufferers living at home), the community, supervised housing such as “My Pad,” how it feels to get back to normal, the role of work in recovery.
Stick season – Turning sadness to hope
There’s a sadness in the air as “stick season” descends upon us. For those to whom this is a new phrase, it’s that time between glorious foliage colors and the sparkle of stars and ice crystals in the lengthening darkness. It might seem to fall on us suddenly, but truly it creeps in, allowing us time to prepare for our rejuvenation by the fire.
Crop tree release
My woodlot in Bolton was logged in the 1980s. Through a practice known as “diameter-limit cutting,” all trees above a certain diameter (probably 11 inches or 14 inches) were cut. My land is a good site for growing red and white oak, white and red pine, red spruce and hemlock, but this harvest removed most trees of these species, creating a forest of mostly unhealthy beech and red maple.
Are they no longer headed for the Badlands?
This has been a summer, as have the past few, when driving up to Eden we often feel like we’re part of a motorcycle rally on Rte. 100. Headed north and south alike, the flocks of cyclists on the road take me back to my youth when my hometown in southern Minnesota was on the main line to Sturgis, South Dakota, rallying point of cyclists since 1938.
All of your days
I was having a conversation with Nate, my son who is going to turn 21 soon, about meaning and life. He was curious about how we find meaning. Almost as if meaning is hidden somewhere, and our life’s work is to search and search for this thing that will bring us to a place of peace or understanding or, lord help us, happiness. Ah! There it is! Meaning! Finally!
Remembering Barrie Dunsmore
Barrie Dunsmore died last Sunday—and he’s been my constant companion—rowing with me on the lake as the sun rises, walking around meadows and offering amusing peanut gallery perspectives on the news. It’s odd that when people die, they seem not gone but ever closer.
End of summer outings
Tour de Farms is coming to Charlotte on Sunday, Sept. 16. The 11th annual fundraiser supports local agriculture and food-centered poverty programs.
Calendar of Events – August 12 – September 22
August 12 Rokeby Museum pie and ice cream social. Having a great day is as easy as pie…
Young Charlotters – Becca von Trapp
Full Belly Farm is a very important place to Becca Von Trapp. She has been farming there for the past seven years. Full Belly is a 400-acre, certified organic farm in the Capay Valley in Northern California (not to be confused with a farm with the same name in Hinesburg) that has produced organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and a variety of meats for over 30 years.
Curbing Our Way Across America
Times have changed. Really changed. In 1964 I embarked on an adventure that would today result in a trip to the hospital if not the morgue. This is a true tale of my escape from despair into a meandering saga that played out beyond my wildest dreams.
Around Town
Congratulations: to Elizabeth Aube Kozachek and her husband, Joe, who celebrated their first wedding anniversary on June 17. Elizabeth is the daughter of Patti and Mark Aube of Charlotte.
The good, the bad and the ugly
By the time the ink dries on this issue of The Charlotte News, hiking in Vermont’s higher elevations will be open for the season. The Green Mountain Club (GMC), steward of Vermont’s Long Trail, offers numerous walks, hikes, paddles, birding and workdays in our region through the upcoming hiking season. A June sampling:
Charlotte Library News
Thursday, May 31, at 3:15 p.m. THINK Tank: Paper Circuits. Make light-up circuits on a piece of paper! Conductive tape, a battery and LEDs will light up your card or folded paper creation. For 4th-8th grades. Registration required. Please sign up for up to two THINK Tank programs in May. For more sessions, please request to be put on the waiting list.
What musical language says that other language doesn’t
I have long been a fan of musical words. An attempted writer myself, I look for those people who can put meaning into language that often goes beyond what she or he thought of to put down on paper. I have said before, I favor Mark Twain, who once wrote that he never knew what he was going to say until he began to write it.
Green Up Vermont 2018: Let’s pick up this town together!
Did you know that Vermont was the first state to designate a day of the year to clean up litter along the roadsides? And on that day in 1970, participation and results far exceeded expectations: 95 percent of the 2,400 miles of the interstate and state roads and 75 percent of the 8,300 miles of town roads were cleared of garbage! Thanks
Meet Cherie Schrader – Charlotte Rescue Advanced EMT
Cherie was born in Harper Woods, Michigan, a city of about 14,000 residents located about 15 miles from Detroit. Her father worked as a tool and die maker.
John Sheehan, a neighbor of distinction
In his classic poem, “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost quotes his neighbor who says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Well, that may have been true for those two, but my neighbor of several decades, the recently deceased John Sheehan, and I did not need a good fence to respect and enjoy our neighborliness.