Month: October 2023

Post by Ella. The Southern Vermont Arts Center, along with its galleries, event venue, theater, and extensive trail systems has also a sculpture garden set on the rolling lawns and tucked into forest niches. Some were of the scrap metal ilk rusted by the elements, some wood carved, and of course there was the time…

Post by Grubb. It’s hard to stop at any town Vermont without getting a sugar fix. Ella’s already given you a picture of the maple syrup farm we visited. Thursday when we drove through Woodstock we decided to take a break and stretch our legs. We didn’t get but a couple of blocks before we…

Post by Grubb There was no question about what world I was walking around today. The mangled machinery sculptures on the Southern Vermont Arts Center lawn were a vivid contrast to the sylvan background. Then there was the man walking his dog who I overheard talking into the wireless air. “Don’t worry about it. I…

Post by Ella. At the Southern Vermont Arts Center today. A tranquil setting. I was transfixed by the two special exhibits: Ashley Bryan and Sally Mavor. Sally Mavor has perfected the art of embroidery to stitch together her creations. Mixed media with exquisite needle work. Sally illustrated a children’s book written by Rebecca Bond, “My…

Post by Grubb. It happened late Friday morning at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. There was the leaf-shuffling hike up in the foothills behind the center to give a nineteenth century stir to the blood. Then we took in the Ashley Bryan collection of puppets at the Arts Center. Artifacts of puppetry were kept in…

Post by Ella. And it’s not IKEA’s Swedish meatballs. Depot 62 in Manchester, VT bills itself as a furniture store with a central dining area. You can eat lunch or dinner and shop for a sofa or rug. We walked up the creaky wooden steps and into a blast of warm spice aroma with the…

Post by Ella. Maple trivia:  In Vermont, sugaring season begins sometime in February to mid-March. When temps dip below freezing (ideally 20°-30°), sap is pushed up from the roots, coursing through the veins of the tree. As the temperature rises during the day, the sap flows back down and conveniently some flows into the metal…

Heading into the last days of our trip. Today, from Burlington, Vt. To Sunderland, Vt. Although we’ve mostly been staying off the Interstates in favor of the less traveled roads, today we wanted to make a detour to Sugarbush (Maple syrup and cheese farm) and Woodstock (historical buildings, traffic jam rivaling Stowe and maple creemees)…

Post by Grubb. Dateline: Burlington, Vermont, late 18th century. Ethan Allen was a hometown hero before there was even a town. People settling in the area from New Hampshire claimed it was New Hampshire, people settling from New York claimed it was New York. Ethan joined with a bunch of investors and bought a whole…

Post by Grubb. Collecting weathervanes is one thing, but amassing whirligigs as well, who else but Electra Havemeyer Webb would have the resources, much less know the difference? But before I could immerse myself in objets d’weather, I had to check out the Bierstadt that I heard was on exhibit in another building at the…

Grubb wrote about the printing demo we saw at the Shelburne Museum where a cast iron platen was cranked down on a frame pressing paper onto a carved and inked wood block. Chinle, who lives in Silver City, NM sent a photo from the Southwest Print Fiesta held just last week. Here’s how they do…

Post by Grubb. Electra Havemeyer Webb inherited a sugar fortune. Then she married a polo player whose mother was a Vanderbilt. With her wealth, Electra preserved thirty- eight 19th century buildings and then had them installed as a village on her 1,000 acre estate just off of Route 7 in Shelburne, Vermont. Electra had a…

Post by Ella. Yesterday, one of our stops was the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge. When we saw that the Discovery Nature Trail was mowed grass leading to a raised bridge of planks leading to crushed gravel…who could resist such a cushy hike. More like a stroll on the superhighway of swamp trails. After the Discovery…

Post by Ella. Holly from Stowe and Mary from Burlington, now both residing in Albuquerque, both spent time at University of Vermont in Burlington. Today, we went to the Fleming Museum of Art on campus and then walked around getting the feel of the place. First the museum. It took us a minute to find…

Post by Ella. Yesterday we took an old fashioned country drive through the islands of Lake Champlain. We pulled into Knight Point State Park for a gander at the shoreline. We gave consideration to taking a ferry over to Plattsburgh, NY but opted to continue through Lake Champlain. We stopped at a modern version of…