Bloggle

The birds are singing, the trees are budding, and the snow is all but a dirty-white memory. The crocuses that herself planted last fall which are not blue or purple, but yellow — Yellow! Scott, I blame you – are blooming. By golly it must be mud season Spring. And if that weren’t sign enough of the change of seasons, the dance-card is full of ecologically-minded events, many right here in Vermont.

• Earth day is Tuesday, April 22nd. This year — in the face of looming climate crisis — it’s important to not only act locally (you can find an Earth Day event near you) but also to make some noise.

  If you’ve been following the seemingly endless string of political debates (don’t even get me started on the recent ABC debacle) you may have noticed something missing — the climate crisis. That’s not an accident. Most all of these debates have been sponsored by front groups for Big Oil, and they’ve been excruciatingly effective at keeping global climate change out of the conversation. Let your elected representatives know that you haven’t forgotten the climate crisis.

• Vermonters will want to note, too, that Small Dog Electronics is once again doing their Earth Day affiliated electronics recycling event. It’s free (recycling fees are being picked up by Small Dog’s sponsoring partners) and it’s a great way to keep heavy metal “e-waste” out of Vermont landfills. Be sure to note, too, that it takes place Saturday, April 19th.

• Green Up Day is, as always, the first Saturday in May — this year, May 3^rd. Green Up Vermont is in its 38^th year, and this time ’round more than 12,000 volunteers will be lined up along the state’s highways, byways and streams, bagging and hauling off junk and garbage revealed by the snowmelt.

So get on out there and get your green on!

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Driving back from Boston yesterday I saw the telltale blooms of steam billowing from hilltop sugar houses… Vermont’s surest sign that we’re at the muddy intersection between a long, snowy winter and spring greening. I suspect I won’t have opportunity to head into the woods this year to revisit some of Vermont’s family-owned sugar shacks, so I’m reprising a visit I made to the Isham family farm and maple sugarhouse… just down the road aways here in Williston.

Maple sugaring is a tradition that has flourished at the Isham family farm for five generations. It’s on the verge of a sixth generation — Mike Isham’s daughter Jennifer may well prove to be the first iPod-wearing sugarer in Vermont — provided the weather holds out. Maple sugaring happens only in the subtle dance between winter and spring, where the cycle of warming days and freezing nights makes the sap run. In the face of global climate change, Vermont’s tradition of sugaring may be in danger.
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Today is VOTR day. To those of you who haven’t been paying attention to United States presidential politics — whether because you’re a non US citizen or because you have your head buried in the sand — today is a remarkable day, and for a number of reasons.

Today the states of Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island cast their votes in the presidential primaries (hence, VOTR, and yes; I’m inordinately chuffed that Vermont is listed first, if only for the purpose of a syncopic acronym.) In most presidential election years, this wouldn’t mean much; the race is usually decided long before Vermont’s very few delegates come into play.

But this isn’t any old race. It’s an historic event.

It’s quite likely that the outcome of this race will decide whether the oval office is inhabited by somebody — anybody — other than still another graying, white man. Unless, of course, something terribly unlikely occurs and John McCain is elected, presumably for the sole purpose of perpetuating the graying-white-man winning streak, as it seems he has little else to offer.

Even in that unlikely event, the outcome of this year’s presidential election is certain to have one result progressive-thinking folk can all get behind: the election of an individual whom the neoconservatives despise; an individual who may single-handedly cause the denizens of the hate-radio right to silence themselves, if only to keep from drowning in their collective froth and spume.

It truly is the dawning of a new day in America.

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My apologies for doing such a poor job of keeping things up-to-date here. Between the busy holiday season — and some other projects — I’ve been lax in my blogging.

To make amends, let me kick off the new year by filtering through the year just past… at least as seen by the eye of my camera. Here are my favorite photos of 2007. (Click to start the show, then you can navigate forward and back by clicking on the slides.)

Here’s to 2008!

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