Night and snow settling on LBJ’s Grocery, Worcester, VT. You can get garam masala and basmati rice here in addition to Bud Light and Hershey bars.
It’s been a busy winter, and I haven’t posted much, but I have been posting more regularly on Instagram (@lazenbyphoto), so if you have Instagram, follow! Meanwhile, I’ll be catching up here.
After a long cloudy day, the sun came out and the kids started jumping off the mini-mountain of manmade snow at the Craftsbury, VT, Outdoor Center last weekend. The guy on the bottom started out facing the other direction and in this series is en route to a 360.
To mark the start of fall: the last few hours of a last summer day on Lake Champlain. Early September, Oakledge Park, Burlington, VT.
Lake Iroquois, Williston, VT, this morning. Temperature about 36 degrees F. Frost on the dock, but worth it to see the light. Five days ago it was 94 degrees and humid.
The devil is in the details, as always, but in this case, also the garage.
If you have some time on your hands, you might want to consider swimming across Lake Champlain. About fifty people did it on Sunday in the annual Lake Champlain Open Water Swim. They rode the ferry from Charlotte, VT, to Essex, NY, and then swam back to the Charlotte town beach, a distance of about 3.7 miles. The start, above. Below, into the swim.
It’s more complicated than it sounds. You have to swim the distance and on the straightest line possible, but it’s very hard, at water level, to see where you’re going. There’s a strobe light at the destination, boats lead the way and kayakers help shepherd the flock on the best line. Swimmers wear brightly colored floats so they can easily be seen. All photos taken with a waterproof point-and-shoot, most from a kayak. Click here for short a gallery. Click here for more information about the event. It benefits the Lake Champlain Committee. 
I’m just about finished with a multi-month project photographing the Chaloux Brothers Firewood operation in Williamstown, VT. Meet Roger and Hector Chaloux, among the nicest and most hard-working guys around. And meet lots of firewood, 700 or more cords a year, to add up to something more than 30,000 cords over their 39 years in business. They run log-length wood through their processor, which cuts it to length, splits it and sends it up a conveyor belt and into a dump truck for aging or immediate delivery depending on whether a customer wants green or dry wood. Top, Hector’s silhouette as he operates the wood processor. Below, Roger, and Hector and some of the steps along the way to making firewood. Some of the photos will be in the fall issue of Northern Woodlands magazine. Click here for a full gallery.
The Craftsbury, VT, Outdoor Center held its first half marathon Saturday on a beautiful and challenging course that traversed 13.1 miles of dirt roads, ski trails, and single-track through the woods to the Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro. 2,000 feet of elevation gain with beer and lunch at the end. Adam Martin, a nordic skier with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (above, center) won in 1:16:42; David Sinclair, Waitsfield, VT, left, was second; Patrick Caldwell, US Ski Team (in blue), was third. US Ski Team (and GRP) skier Ida Sargent, below, won the women’s race in 1:37:05. There can’t be many half marathons that can match this one for the scenery alone, not to mention the hills and the beer. Click here for a full gallery. Click here for results.
It was all big: the barn dance in Dave Rowell’s big yellow barn in East Craftsbury, VT, last night; the crowd (hundreds); Dave himself (at the mike with the Starline Rythmn Boys); the fried chicken sandwiches served up by the Craftsbury General Store; the rebound in the barn’s wooden floor when the band played Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On. The biggest Northeast Kingdom social event of the spring. To benefit the Craftsbury Public Library and the Craftsbury Chamber Players. Only in Vermont does a rockabilly band play to nurture the appreciation of chamber music.
It was the end of Agriculture, at least temporarily. Ceres, the god of Agriculture, came down from the dome of the Vermont State House in Montpelier yesterday. Carved from pine by State House Sergeant-at-Arms Dwight Dwinnell and associates in the 1930s to replace the 1859 version made by sculptor Larkin Mead, she was rotting away. A new one will be made, based on Mead’s original. This one will head to the Vermont Historical Society museum.
