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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To say that the native Vermonter is frugal is something akin to suggesting that a Scotsman has a passing interest in plaid. That is to say, it so understates the depth and breadth of the Vermonter’s frugality that it belies the essential truth, which is that Vermonters are so tight they squeak when they walk. Consider –

• Those pristine white clapboard churches that line the village green? Step around back. Chances are, the back of that church is red — painted with cheaper barn paint. Quintessentially Vermont, indeed.
• Talk around the Vermonters’ water cooler may consist of topics the likes of how to get the last bit of toothpaste from the bottom of the tube, or which gas stations in a 50-mile radius offer a nickel off their pump price every third Tuesday.
• And there may be some truth to the rumor that the boards of growing Vermont companies have to import flatlanders for the chief financial jobs… when it comes to funding big expenditures native Vermonters simply cannot bring themselves to the write the check.

The Vermonter’s tendency to pinch pennies is an ingrained trait. For decades the Green Mountain State was largely isolated and, for the most part, dirt-poor. The Vermont farmer (and most all of Vermonters were farmers — of sheep, dairy, wheat, corn and maple sugar) led a hard-scrabble life. It’s only far more recently that Vermonters have added bumper crops of leaf-peepers, hikers, mountain bikers and snow skiers to their bounty.

I note all of this only to help explain a curious phenomenon that seems to go hand in worn-leather-glove with the Vermonter’s frugality, and that is his love of a bargain. And in Vermont, bargain is spelled t-e-n-t s-a-l-e.

The tent sale is an event whereupon merchants secretly pitch palatial pavilions in dead of night, to find legions of Vermonters waiting in line at first light, stamping their feet in the pre-dawn cold, and craning their necks for a better view at the potential bargains within.

Nobody knows just how Vermonters learn that a tent sale is to take place… they just know. Nor does it particularly matter whether the goods inside the tent are, indeed, bargain-priced. The logic goes: it’s in a tent, therefore it must be a good deal.

This has led to a thriving business in tents in the state. And, in fact, you will find architectural marvels akin to the spinnaker sails of the Sydney opera house or the onion domes of the Taj Mahal, albeit rendered in canvas and steel and capable of being both raised and razed in 30 minutes flat.

So, a wise word to the traveler. If you intend to visit Vermont this autumn, and should you choose to camp in the arboreal splendor of our mountains and valleys, have a care. Firstly, consider sleeping in the open air… the stars are lovely. But if you absolutely must raise a tent of your own, think small — think very small — lest you find a herd of restive Vermonters at dawn’s door, looking for a deal.

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