Please leave this in issue 261 so I can continue debugging the comments showing up in the text.

Emily turned 16 last week. There are many things a 16-year-old might want for her birthday, including an iPad, an iPod, or a smartphone. One thing you wouldn't expect a teenager to request: a strawberry.

No, “strawberry” is not the new BlackBerryNOTE (Unknown Author, 2014-06-10T21:26:58): Missing a chance to use the word apple, from lede.. We're talking about a strawberry, and not just any strawberry. If you'll notice, I used the singular form to describe her request. We'll get to that. For now, please consider a 16-year-old girl requesting a strawberry as her birthday gift.

Welcome to Richardson's Candy Kitchen, at 500 Greenfield Road in Deerfield, Mass., home of the famous chocolate-covered strawberry, the Holy Grail of delicacies. If you're not yet familiar with them, you have a brief time to become acquainted, luck and weather permitting.

These rare birds appear for a few weeks only, at the height of strawberry season. They're available each day until they sell out, and they do - quickly.

Read More

Heavy rain raises level of contamination at local swimming holes

The Southeastern Vermont Watershed Alliance's (SeVWA's) water quality monitoring program has begun another summer of sampling 26 river and stream sites along the West, Williams, and Saxtons rivers, as well as North Branch Brook, Rock River, and the Whetstone Brook. The first week of monitoring, on June 18, found...

Read More

Milestones

College news • The following local students recently graduated from Castleton State College: Sarah Clark of Guilford, with a B.S. in sports administration; Katie Derrig of Putney, with a B.S. in nursing; Megan Harris of Saxtons River, magna cum laude with a B.A. in political science; Taylor Kerylow of...

Read More

More

The Future Collective launches online fundraiser to pay annual budget

The Future Collective launched their online fundraiser on June 25, 2014 through the website IndieGoGo. The link to their online fundraiser is igg.me/at/FUNDTHEFUTURE/x. The Future Collective is a nonprofit, volunteer-run group of Brattleboro young people founded in January 2012. They have hosted many events ranging from all-ages music shows, community art openings, a weekly radio show, dance parties, ice cream giveaways, outdoor cabarets, child art and music making, outdoor adventures, peer-supported mental health workshops, community art nights, collaboration with other...

Read More

Putney Central School selected for Vermont Farm to School Institute

Putney Central School is one of 11 Vermont schools selected recently to join the 2014-2015 Vermont Food Farm to School Institute, offered by Vermont Food Education Every Day (VT FEED). The Institute is a year-long learning opportunity that helps schools engage students in food, farm, and nutrition education and serve healthful, local school lunches. The Institute has helped more than 37 Vermont teams develop vibrant Farm to School programs since 2010. The Vermont Farm to School Institute is offered free...

Read More

BMH’s Richards Building suffers flood damage

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital administrators said last Friday that the lobby of the hospital's Richards Building will be closed for a few weeks due to damage sustained during the heavy rains on June 24. According to hospital spokesperson Nicole Zinn, the following outpatient services have been relocated. • Patient registration: Laboratory Services - Exercise Room (ground floor); All other outpatient services - Main Hospital Registration. • Pre-Op Assessment - Medical Staff Lounge/Library (first floor). • Laboratory Services - Exercise Room (ground...

Read More

Around the Towns

July 4 closures in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - In observance of Independence Day, all town offices will be closed on Friday, July 4, with the exception of emergency services. Parking is free at all metered spaces and in the pay-and-display lots on Friday. All other violations, including extended parking will be enforced. Brooks Memorial Library will be closed on July 4. It will be open for normal business hours on Thursday, July 3, and Saturday, July 5. Trash, recycling and composting...

Read More

Kaija Saariaho to be composer-in-residence for Marlboro Music's 64th season

Some of the world's most noted and most promising young musicians have gathered at the hilltop campus of Marlboro College for the opening of the 64th season of the Marlboro Music School & Festival. The unique Vermont summer community which The New Yorker once described as “the classical world's most coveted retreat” will share the discoveries of its 75 resident artists on five concert weekends from July 19 through Aug. 17. Performances are on Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. and Sundays...

Read More

Tug of war breaks out over $10 million

With an initial $2 million in economic development funds cooling in the state's coffers, the process for distributing those funds in Windham County is heating up. Entergy, owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, is giving the state $10 million over five years to fund economic development activities in Windham County. The funds are part of an agreement the company reached with the state last winter regarding the closing of the plant. Many in Windham County, however,

Read More

Saxtons River celebrates the Fourth with townwide events

With a theme of “A Star-Spangled Fourth,” Saxtons River kicks off its annual Independence Day celebration Friday, July 4, with a 5K Firecracker Road Race at 8:30 a.m. and a parade at 9:30. In addition to the race, sponsored by Pleasant Valley Brew Pub, the day's activities include a street fair highlighted by firefighters' water polo, a hula hoop contest, and music on the bandstand. Miniature golf, an egg toss, a pie contest, face painting and a baseball game (Saxtons...

Read More

AOT gives green light to Scott Covered Bridge repairs

Pedestrians likely will return to historic Scott Covered Bridge as soon as early 2016. That's according to Agency of Transportation Project Manager Doug Bonneau, who told residents at an information meeting at the town offices Monday that the bridge project has the state's full attention and is in line for the agency's 2016 construction season. That's welcome news to many here who have wondered why the project appeared to languish in Montpelier. Moving forward, a full rehabilitation of the 144-year-old...

Read More

‘Brattleboro Goes Fourth’ with a parade, fireworks, and lots of family fun

The “By the People: Brattleboro Goes Fourth” citizens committee invites the public to the town's 41st annual Independence Day celebration, set for Friday, July 4, with a morning parade downtown and afternoon and evening program of free activities, concerts and fireworks at Living Memorial Park. Some 50 marching units - including the Brattleboro American Legion and Brattleboro Union High School bands, veterans, civic and youth groups, and local personality Alfred Hughes Jr. in his annual top-secret gown - will kick...

Read More

Moore Library showcases local artists in ‘Elements’

The Moore Free Library/Crowell Gallery, 23 West St., presents in July a multi-artist exhibition of art in fiber, ceramic, and print. “Elements” features Jackie Abrams, Patricia Burleson, Kris McDermet, Susan Osgood, Lauri Richardson, and Deidre Scherer. An artists' reception is set at the library for Saturday, July 5, from 3 to 5 p.m. “Elements” is a celebration of six artists working in diverse media. Drawing inspiration from their surroundings, they all share a passion for the basic elements of art:

Read More

Food bites

Brattleboro will be getting another brewery soon. Hermit Thrush Brewery will be opening later this year on 29 High St., at the former site of the Blue Moose bistro. According to its website, www.hermitthrushbrewery.com, the brewery will be brewing “Belgian inspired ales” using a “responsible” brewing process. The brewery, according to its Facebook page (facebook.com/HermitThrushBrewery/), “is the brainchild of President and Brewmaster Chrisophe Gagné and his beer-loving friend and Vice President Avery Schwenk.” Hermit Thrush will use oak barrels, rather...

Read More

VY may be closing, but the danger still remains

Entergy wants to end the system of sirens, free “tone alert radios” for people within 10 miles of the Vermont Yankee, and automated phone calls in case of a nuclear emergency. Thanks to a protest movement in the Brattleboro area that saw thousands march and hundreds arrested for non-violent, civil disobedience, the 42-year-old reactor will close permanently in December. But when Vermont Yankee closes, its 530 or so tons of nuclear waste will remain on site. The waste is the...

Read More

Discussion shows perils and pitfalls of website photo use

Thanks very much for printing Peggy Farabaugh's piece about copyright infringement [Business, June 18] and also the response from Markus Brakhan [Letters, June 25]. Though Brakhan's assessment of Farabaugh's situation might seem harsh, the two letters serve as warning to those of us who maintain websites for small businesses. Apparently, these days we must develop the ability to research the provenance of photos and other graphics that we use or else forgo using them. In light of all this, I...

Read More

State awards grant to WSWMD to support school recycling, composting

The Windham Solid Waste Management District was one of four groups around the state that will split $45,000 from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources's DEC Solid Waste Program to support school recycling and composting programs across the state. These grants facilitate implementation of Vermont's Universal Recycling Law, Act 148 of 2012, which requires phased-in recycling and composting statewide over the next 5 years. WSWMD will received $11,250 to work with schools in Southeast Vermont. Other groups receiving grants the...

Read More

Drug use, convictions baked into the national system

Getting inebriated is an intentional human behavior - it is not a mistake or an accident. Neither is it a mental-health crisis. It is, in fact, perfectly normal human behavior well within the range of good mental health. Just like the drugs themselves, it is a question of degree (or percentage) of usage and effect. Deeply ingrained in the desired effects of drug use is another perfectly normal human behavior: moderation. In fact, moderation is the largest component of drug-use...

Read More

Are we really the greatest nation on Earth?

Often, politicians and others like to glorify American democracy, history, principles and actions. They wallow in soliloquies espousing the United States as the best, brightest, and most innovative country in the world. They beg the question: Why would anyone want to live elsewhere? Well, besides our inability to stop gun violence, our treatment of the poor (many of whom are children), our crumbling infrastructure and inadequate cell-phone service, our denial of climate change, the Koch brothers' political power, our shameful...

Read More

July 4 art show, auction benefits Wardsboro Library

The Friends of the Wardsboro Library sponsors its annual Art Show and Sale on the front lawn of the Wardsboro Library on Friday, July 4, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Featured this year: one-of-a-kind works on 100-year-old Vermont roofing slates. Many local artists were invited to create a piece of art for the annual event in their own style, theme, and preferred medium. All of the art work will be available for purchase. This impressive collection of slates will...

Read More

Good pitching gives Post 5 wins over Bennington, Hartford

A good pitching effort can wipe away a lot of other frustrations on the baseball diamond. Brattleboro Post 5 pitcher Danny Richardson delivered a gem in a 1-0 win over Bennington Post 13 in an American Legion Baseball game in Bennington on June 24. Richardson needed only 80 pitches to throw a complete-game, four-hit shutout, with four strikeouts and one walk. He was aided as well by three double plays. Bennington entered the June 24 game with Brattleboro after starting...

Read More

‘Liquid gold’ for the betterment of the planet

I expect that few know the Rich Earth Institute by name, but most have heard about our work - collecting urine, using it to fertilize some local hayfields, and saving some of the 1.2 trillion gallons of potable water we use to flush small amounts of urine down our toilets. Lots of you saw us strolling with the heifers and joined us in the memorable cheer, “Give us a pee!” This work may be frivolous in how it sounds -

Read More

Distler, Hauptman to read their poetry at Twilight Tea Lounge

Poets Arlene Distler and Terry Hauptman will read from their work at the Twilight Tea Lounge, 41 Main St., on Friday, July 11 (Gallery Walk), at 7:30 p.m. Distler will read from her first published collection, “Voices Like Wind Chimes,” brought out by Finishing Line Press this spring. Vermont poet Chard DiNiord says of “Voices:” “These are moving lyrical poems that transcend mere experience with a distilled wisdom that resonates with spontaneous freshness...Distler's parallax vision reveals both the visceral and...

Read More

The great freedom: To be who you are

Recently, the Brattleboro Area Farmers' Market had a children's day. Children set up tables and sold cookies, illustrated cards, stories they had written, painted rocks. Many of them were girls. Wanting to encourage the writer among them, I bought “The Goofy Dog,” a story written and illustrated by an enterprising girl. As I looked around, girls were everywhere: selling, buying, running, laughing. I thought of the harrowing story I had heard the previous day on public radio. A young woman...

Read More

Local musician returns to Brattleboro with ‘In Stile Moderno’

Brattleboro native Nathaniel Cox and British-American soprano Agnes Coakley return this month for a series of concerts in the Brattleboro area. Three Brattleboro-area homes will host benefit concerts for local arts organizations: Friends of Music at Guilford on Monday, July 7; New England Youth Theatre on Sunday, July 13; and the Brattleboro Music Center on Tuesday, July 22. In addition, they will perform at the First Universalist Parish in Chester at 3 p.m. on Sunday July 27. The house concerts...

Read More

Brooks Library presents free Wednesday afternoon screenings of classic screwball comedies

Beginning next Wednesday and continuing through Nov. 12, the Brattleboro Film Festival and Brooks Memorial Library will present free afternoon screenings of nine Hollywood classic screwball comedies from Tinseltown's Golden Era. A film by renowned Director Preston Sturges, whose comedies (according to film critic Todd McCarthy) mix the sensibilities of “a lowbrow aristocrat” with a that of a “melancholy wiseguy,” will kick off the five-month-long series on July 9 at 2 p.m. in the library's Meeting Room on the 2nd...

Read More

A celebration of summer

A warm and sunny Saturday, a day situated right between the first day of summer and the Fourth of July, was a perfect time for three Windham County towns to celebrate in their own ways. In Guilford, they got a jump on the Fourth of July events with their annual Freedom Fest, an easy-going, low-key event at the Broad Brook Grange. In Vernon, townspeople cast away fiscal uncertainty for a day with their annual town picnic at the Recreation Area...

Read More

Blazing a path towards financial independence

The crack of hammers striking nails and the high-pitched whirr of a circular saw echo from a construction bay at the Windham Regional Career Center. Sadie Stull, an independent contractor with 30 years under her tool belt, signals to the six women building an outdoor shed for Morningside Shelter. Setting down their tools, the Step Up to Construction Boot Camp students gather around Stull as she demonstrates cutting angles using a circular saw. Stull is one of the teachers participating...

Read More

My road trip with Mara

Putting on a show at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center is a bit like putting on a Broadway play: thinking up concepts; begging, borrowing, or seducing the right people to contribute; readying the stage; sweeping the floor; setting out the food; chilling the wine - abracadabra! A museum show is born. The show that opened at BMAC June 27 is called “Road Show,” so when museum curator Mara Williams asked me to ride shotgun on a trip to New...

Read More

Delicious — and medicinal

A virus, a bacteria, a fungus, and a microbe walk into a bar... and garlic kills them all. Garlic is one of the most important of the medicinal plants and is certainly the most delicious, too. But, no one really knows what it is. Food nerds may challenge garlic as an herb or a spice. About.com has this to say on the matter: “One of the most important ingredients in all of the culinary arts, garlic nevertheless seems to defy,

Read More

Lysterical reaction

The United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently caused a near panic among cheese industry professionals - and among plenty of people who love good cheese and who would like to continue eating it. The FDA said that “wood is no good.” Or did it? Two years ago, the agency found Listeria monocytogenes (the bacterium that causes the potentially fatal infection listeriosis) on multiple surfaces during an inspection of a cheesemaking facility in the Finger Lakes region of New...

Read More

Camera focuses on ‘House Hunter’ filmmaker

Stepping in front of the camera was a big move for town resident and television producer Tim Wessel. Co-owner of Vermont Film Group, Wessel and business partner Dan Lyons have served as subcontractors for camera and audio work on multiple episodes of the popular HGTV shows “House Hunters” and “House Hunters International.” In a twist, on Tuesday, July 8 at 10 p.m. on HGTV, Wessel's own house hunting adventure will air. In the episode, Wessel views three houses in town...

Read More