Condolences to the WDEV family, all Vermonters, and the motorsports world on the passing of Kenley Dean Squier (April 10, 1935–November 15, 2023).
It is often said of a generation of Vermonters that “They Don’t Make ’em Like That Anymore.” Ken Squier was in that category but he was also one of a kind, a man who could call the Daytona 500 or a high school basketball game, play an outrageously whacky song on Music to Go to the Dump By (some of his favorites: Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life, Cows with Guns, and The Colorectal Surgeon Song), win the hearts and ears of listeners (even while they were groaning at his sense of humor), and dismantle the best-laid plans of anybody he interviewed and anybody who ever worked for him. And he nurtured and passed on a radio station and an approach to local news and community unlike virtually any other station in America. These photos are from WDEV’s 90th anniversary celebration, in the middle of Stowe Street in Waterbury, in July 2021.
If you are unfamiliar with Ken Squier and WDEV, click here for David Goodman’s excellent goodbye to Squier.
Tag: Vermont
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Ken Squier Signs Off
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Sun Dog Symphony
Morning sun and ice crystals floating in the air created this sight at Sugarbush, VT, Monday morning. I don’t know what this phenomenon is called: multiple sun dogs with a big rainbow is the best I can come up with. But I can tell you it was truly awesome. [Click headline or photo for more.] Somewhat like seeing a solar eclipse in that it made you feel as though you were on planet spinning around a star. And it stopped traffic on the slopes for those fortunate enough to realize something was happening and look up. The last image below is just crystals hanging in the air, making prisms. The photos don’t show the colors as well as they appeared. Each arch was basically a rainbow.
There was simultaneously a giant valley cloud bank that made it feel as though there were huge white mountain peaks below. All in all, a striking morning.
Click here for larger images.
Thanks to George Springston for more information on this optical phenomenon, properly called a halo, or in this case, halos.
Click here for a Wikipedia entry on the subject.
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New Farms for New Americans
Belated Thanksgiving post: I had the pleasure last summer of photographing immigrants in the New Farms for New Americans program in Burlington for the Vermont Almanac. On a beautiful August evening new Vermonters from places like Bhutan, Somalia, Burma and the Congo harvested crops grown next to the Winooski River. [Click photo or headline for full post.] They have their own garden plots and although part of the idea is to introduce them to North American crops, perhaps more importantly it gives them a place to grow familiar crops from their homelands. For people who have come a long way in every sense of the word to be here, it is a blessing. And as appropriate for Thanksgiving as anything I can think of.
More detail is in volume three of the Vermont Almanac, now available in bookstores and online. New Farms for New Americans is a program of AALV.
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Top of the State, State of the Top
Climbed very slowly up Mt. Mansfield last week, going from misty valley fog through bright sun on bright foliage to a smattering of ice and snow on top, at the highest point in Vermont, 4,395 feet in elevation. That was a peak, but also the end of peak foliage. Click on pic or head for more. Or there’s a bit more on Instagram and Facebook.
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Heights of the Season
Leaves peaking, leaf peepers peeping, yesterday, White Rocks Mountain, VT; Hunger Mountain next door, Camels Hump, Mansfield, Waterbury Res in the distance. And the season’s first frost on the trees. Crystalline, cold and breezy on the summits. And today, the first woodstove fire of the season. Click thru for more.
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Return of the Mud
A Mud Season to remember. Or maybe to forget as soon as possible. Maybe it was three weeks of cold temperatures without much snow, which, as the saying goes, drove the frost deep into the ground so that when it thawed it came out in rolling waves of muck. What ever it was, we got it. It seems to be subsiding earthward at the moment, but you never know … Top, Dan Bragg and Hazen Stoufer put sap buckets out on Hammett Hill Road in East Montpelier. Below, East Montpelier and Montpelier, loosening up for spring.
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10 Years Ago: Irene
Workmen gaze into the gap that was left after Camp Brook destroyed Camp Brook Road in Bethel, VT, August 30, 2011. Washouts isolated the town of Rochester for days. No matter how closely you follow the news, powerful storms and huge fires around the country and around the world can still seem remote, something that can’t happen here in northern New England. But if you have experienced a disaster like the one that hit Vermont ten years ago, August 28, 2011, when Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11 inches of rain on the state, you have some idea what it can be like. Vermont may seem to be immune to this sort of thing, but Irene proved how quickly a catastrophe can happen here.
Click here and click here for more photos from August 2011.
Route 12A, Northfield, VT, August 30, 2011. 
Green Mountain Club employees, usually caretakers of Vermont’s Long Trail, were taking care of the clean-up at the Whalley mobile home park in Waterbury September 1, 2011. From left: J.P. Krol, Josh Kinsel, Kathryn Wrigley, Zoe Linton. 
Bridge over the Dog River out of commission, West Berlin, VT, August 30, 2011. -
Across the Winooski: the Cross Vermont Trail Bridge
Workers from CCS Constructors in Morrisville, VT, bridged the Winooski River Friday with the latest link in the Cross Vermont Trail. The steel bridge was fabricated in Minnesota, trucked in sections to the banks of the Winooski above the Levesque hydro dam in East Montpelier, assembled and then brought across the river, like a giant erector set in action.
A crane on the hydro site side of the river moved the bridge onto a barge floating in the Winooski. That was floated across the river, where another crane latched onto the bridge and moved it the final yards onto its abutments. The bridge and the associated trail, which will connect to the trail in Montpelier, will not be completely finished or open until the fall.
On the Route 2 side of the river, Cross Vermont Trail founder Rose Paul and the trail’s executive director Greg Western celebrated.
Click here for a nuts-and-bolts look at the whole process.
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They Fixed the Road …
And it looks like Mud Season’s over. The big waves and troughs are scraped and buried for another year. And it’s a bit early because of a surprisingly warm April, so far.
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… And Signs of Spring
Part of the scene at the Burlington, VT, waterfront, on Lake Champlain, over the past weekend. Lots of people out after a long winter.
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Vermont Teachers Protest Pension Reductions
Vermont public school teachers gathered at the State House in Montpelier last week to protest proposed changes in pensions for teachers and other state employees. The state legislature, which had not funded the pension plans adequately in past years, creating an ever-increasing deficit in the retirement system, considered a proposal to reduce pensions and require larger pay-in amounts, among other changes. The changes would not have affected those already retired or who would retire within five years. However, the reaction from teachers was swift and emphatic. By the end of the week the speaker of the state House of Representatives withdrew the proposal and planned to appoint a commission to study the situation over the summer.
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We Got Mud Season
It wasn’t really a hard winter, but after early January, it consistently was moderately cold. So, apparently, the frost settled deeply into the dirt roads. The beauty of this mud bog is that it is just at the end of our driveway, so you don’t have to go far to watch the fun. And you can hear the sounds of scraping metal without even going outside. Plus, with just a short drive you can experience it yourself.
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Winter Retrospective
It’s not really time for a winter retrospective (even though all the snow in the backyard is gone) because we know it’s going to snow in April. But here goes. Except for coaching, I photographed only three races in the winter of 2021, all local and all low-key, from the lollipop race of the Northwest Vermont Bill Koch League Festival at Sleepy Hollow to Vermont’s eastern high school championships at Craftsbury Outdoor Center. They may have been small, but they did not lack for great picture-taking opportunities. Congratulations to the kids, who ski so well and have so much fun, and to all the organizers, the parents and the coaches who put these events together in a pandemic. These are some of my favorites. Click here for full, giant galleries on the new SmugMug pages I have just added.
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Winter Arrives
After a slow start, it suddenly snowed and winter was here, full-time, for now. Top and below, the Montpelier, VT, middle school cross-country team heads across a field on an adventure ski. Everything else is within about two miles of home during the first big snowfall of 2021.
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All Quiet on the State House Front
Despite concerns about demonstrations in the wake of last week’s attack on the US Capitol, Vermont’s State House was practically deserted Sunday except for media and law enforcement. Police, reporters and a few curious citizens chatted, and it just another quiet, gray and snowy Vermont day, but one with security unheard of on a winter Sunday afternoon. The only demonstrators were down at Montpelier’s city hall several blocks away protesting against fascism.
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Winter Happening
As crazy as the rest of 2020, winter at the end of the year was happening slowly, in cold starts followed by fits of warm weather. Above, the colors of winter rolled in over Camel’s Hump, north-central Vermont’s local mountain. Below, the wintry look of Dec. 23 followed by the unwintry look of Dec. 26, after a day of fifty-degree weather and rain. 
Snow due tonight and tomorrow will change things.