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.
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 
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.
Red, white, blue and a peach with orange fuzz at the Montpelier, VT, July 3 parade. A wave from the Morse Farm’s Burr Morse, above, and another from Montpelier’s mayor, Anne Watson, below, along with a Trump protestor and a runner in the annual Montpelier Mile. Bottom, crew members from the USS Montpelier nuclear-powered submarine, who always march in the parade. 
It started snowing in early November in Vermont and kept snowing, with a few rainstorms in between, well into April. At its deepest, the snow on top of Mt. Mansfield, the highest point in the state, reached 10 feet. And the manmade snow on the ski resort slopes hung on well into May. These pictures were taken May 5 and people skied for weeks after that, skinning up the slopes on climbing skins and gliding back down on corn snow. A winter and spring to remember. 
In northern New England, the winter of 2018-19 really started in early November, and it kept going and going. In fact, it seemed as though spring did not arrive until the past few days, when temperatures reached the 60s and the peepers started peeping. There was a lot of winter. Toward the end of the season, snow at the snow stake on top of Mount Mansfield, the highest summit in Vermont, reached more than 10 feet. Above is one of my favorite pictures of the winter, from Craftsbury, VT.
Two weeks at the world nordic ski championships in Austria meant a lot of people met, a lot of stories seen and heard, and a lot of photos taken, from the ski jumper, above, flying toward the Alps, to the Seekirchl (church by the lake) in Seefeld by moonlight, below, to all the faces of nordic ski sport. 
