November turned to winter in a hurry: snow, skiing and temperatures one night near zero. Both photos, early season skiers at Craftsbury Outdoor Center, VT, USA.
Climate Change Strike
Scenes from September 20, when students from Montpelier and around Vermont walked out of school to join the global climate change strike. They marched from Montpelier High School to City Hall and protested lack of action on climate change with a die-in and speeches. Below, three generations of protest. Click here for a gallery.
Prince Edward Island: Sea, Sky and Field
Prince Edward Island, a chunk of red rock and sand cradled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is one of Canada’s Maritime provinces, but, besides the sea, it also lives on tourism and agriculture. We were up there again in the late fall, nominally to help Dirk close up his cabin for the winter, but he did all the work. Top, fall weather on the north shore. Below, a fisherman heads out on the Midgell River on the north side of the island in search of seed mussels to sell to the commercial operations that have made PEI mussels a presence on menus all over North America; big wind turbines loom above a field of wild blueberries, turned crimson in the fall. Click here for a gallery.
Posted in Canada, Canada's Maritimes, Prince Edward Island
Tagged Canada, Canada's Maritimes, Prince Edwrad Island
Anais Mitchell Homecoming
Anais Mitchell grew up in Vermont, where she conceived and composed the musical Hadestown and performed it in bits and pieces at small Vermont venues. Hadestown is now a hit show on Broadway and last week Mitchell was back in Vermont, filling the First Unitarian Church in Burlington. She and guitarist Austin Nevins electrified the crowd. Click here for more on Hadestown. 
Posted in Anais Mitchell, Hadestown, Vermont Music
Tagged Anais Mitchell, Hadestown, Vermont music
Vermont Cyclo-Crossing
Onion River Outdoors in Montpelier, VT, put on the annual Dam Wrightsville Cyclo-Cross races at Wrightsville Dam on Sunday: Run your bike, run with your bike, jump over obstacles, wind through the woods on a beautiful fall day. Click here for full gallery.
Posted in Cyclo-Cross, ont cyclo-cross, Vermont outdoors
Tagged Cyclo-Cross, Vermont cyclo-cross
Bringing in the Hemp
It used to be illegal to grow hemp in Vermont because it is, scientifically, the same plant as marijuana. But hemp doesn’t have nearly as much of the psychoactive substance THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) that marijuana does. (Hemp plants can contain no more than 0.3 percent (by dry weight); marijuana typically contains 5 to 20 percent THC.) With the boom in the use of CBD (cannabidiol) oils and other hemp products, hemp farms have sprung up around Vermont — more than 800 growers on nearly 8,000 acres this summer. The MontKush organization farms on land in Plainfield and scores of workers were harvesting and processing hemp there last week. Click here for something about MontKush. Click here for a gallery. Thanks to Terry Allen for getting me out into the fields.
Posted in hemp, hemp farming, hemp harvest, Vermont
Tagged agriculture, hemp, hemp harvesting, marijuana, Vermont
Farewell to Robert Frank
Robert Frank — one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, has died. But you can still experience his impact by looking up his book The Americans, a collection of piercing photographs taken in the 1950s around the USA and just as powerful now as it was then (click here). Click here for the New York Times story. Click here for a look at Susquehanna Summer, a photography project I did that was in large part inspired by him. Above, Frank, from the Times obit, (photo by Dodo Ming Jin) and, below, two of his photos from The Americans, also screen shots from the Times obit. 
Arborist
Two big dead poplars next to the driveway. Two handsome ashes big and close to the house and (possibly) threatened by the emerald ash borer. Solution: arborist Joseph Ferris, figuring out the angles, setting ropes with a giant slingshot, and putting the trees down exactly where he wanted them to go.
Posted in arborist, logging, Northern Woodlands, Vermont
Tagged arborists, logging, Northern Woodlands, tree cutting, Vermont forests
Ben & Hannah
I don’t generally photograph weddings but every now and then I end up at a great one and I can’t resist. In this case, my friends’ wonderful daughter, Hannah, and the equally wonderful Ben tied the knot. They live in London, but they came to the wilds of Calais, Vermont, Hannah’s hometown, on a spectacular late summer day, to the Old West Church for the service and then to the yellow barn with the hardwood floor for the reception and dancing to the Starline Rhythm Boys. It was a great transatlantic party. A few pictures are here. And click here for a gallery.
Posted in Vermont, weddings
Tagged Vermont, Vermont barn dance, weddings
Summer Night, Baseball
The New England Collegiate Baseball League, the Vermont Mountaineers versus the Newport, RI, Gulls. Played on the Montpelier Recreation Field on a warm evening. The college players live with local families over the summer. The batboys are lucky local kids. A good night for the Mountaineers, who won 13—2. 
