Spring always creeps slowly into the winter-brown Vermont hills and then explodes. This, the other foliage season, a riot of green, seems to arrive in the space of three days. And in the space of two weeks we go from skiing (bottom photo, Mt. Mansfield on April 22nd), to plowing (top, East Montpelier), to bicycling, paddling and mowing the lawn. Summer’s so short it’s a […]
Category Archives: farming
Snow, Wind, Etc.
Just another February day in East Montpelier, although it changed from a sunny, windy one whipping the snow off the barn below to the quiet, overcast scene above in about 30 minutes. Next up: Using a Sony RX100 in a snowstorm.
Also posted in agriculture, black & white, Snow, Travel, Vermont, Weather, Winter
Plainfield Flower Farm
It was 20 below zero here this morning so, to warm you up, here’s a look at the Plainfield, VT, Flower Farm last spring. Bram Towbin and Erica Da Costa have an acre of peonies and about 50 acres of lilacs and snowball viburnum, grown for the cut-flower market. From their hillside in Plainfield their budding flowers travel to urban flower markets around the Northeast. […]
Also posted in agriculture, Colors, Vermont
Biking Croatia’s Dalmatian Islands
Two generations and a Croatian flag in the town of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar in Croatia’s Dalmatian islands. I had the good fortune last week to be traveling there with a Vermont Bicycle Tours group. Tourism in Croatia, on the rise in the 1980s, evaporated with war in the 1990s, but it is booming now. It’s no wonder: the clear, blue water […]
RAGBRAI 2
More from the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, in all its glory: Above, a mountain bike stunt rider at the bike expo, Sioux Center. Below, they got the color scheme just right at Mid-State Milling in Clemons; sustenance on Day One near Sioux Center — all egg sales to benefit the Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra; and knocked out in Webster City, despite (or […]
Also posted in agriculture, alternative energy, Bicycling, Food, Iowa, People, RAGBRAI, roads, Travel
Cyrus, Elahna & Irene
When Elahna Sobel-Faryniarz saw the damage Tropical Storm Irene did to farmers’ fields in Vermont last August, she decided to help. She set up a lemonade stand along Route 14 near her East Calais home and started selling, eventually taking in $40.50, which she sent to the Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund at the Vermont Community Foundation in Middlebury. Her gift was part of the […]
Also posted in agriculture, Food, Hurricane Irene, People
Making Fresh Tracks
Christina Castegren and Kris Tootle have done what Vermont farmers of 50 years ago would have considered unthinkable: On the remains of an old hill farm in the central Vermont town of Berlin they have created a vineyard, complete with acres of cold-tolerant grape vines and a solar-powered and geothermally heated winery and tasting room. It’s called Fresh Tracks Farm. I photographed them and Fresh […]
Also posted in agriculture, alternative energy, Food, People, Spring, Vermont
Hay Barn
From the archives: Hay barn, Adamant, VT, 1982.
Also posted in agriculture, black & white, Vermont