A community filled with neighbors
It’s been a long time since I was editor of The Charlotte News and wrote for these pages. My…
Around Town
This volcanic activity forced residents to act quickly, while they find and collect their belongings, some having to search for a vehicle in which to carry them, and move them into new homes. Jenn says it has been exhausting.
Selectboard Profiles: Community service runs deep in Tenney’s life
Frank Tenney is a member of the Charlotte Selectboard as well as the chairman of the Zoning Board of Adjustments. He has been on the Zoning Board for 12 years, and the Selectboard since March of 2017. Tenney has enjoyed being part of the Selectboard because it gives him the opportunity to know what’s going on in the town and to understand how the town is run. Tenney has this to say about why he became a member of the Selectboard:
Food Shelf News
We celebrate this community-spirited generosity – Thank you for the support this month from Michaela Ryan, farmer and founder of New Village Farm in Shelburne, who donated 50 pounds of ground beef.
Vermont Day School partners with Lake Champlain Chocolates on fair trade project
As part of its annual spring tradition, Vermont Day School recently teamed up with a local business to create a real-world learning opportunity for its students. This year’s project was particularly sweet, as the Day School partnered with Lake Champlain Chocolates (LCC).
Charlotte Senior Center News
It has returned!
Anticipating spring here in Vermont is probably much like the ancients felt during a solar eclipse. There is always some subliminal doubt whether spring (like the sun) will really come back again. And now there is that delicate green haze in the trees from the budding leaves—which is as wonderfully fleeting as cherry blossoms.
Sunny Side Up – Ikigai
Ikigai—such an interesting word, right? Loosely translated as “a reason for being” in Japanese, ikigai is where passion, mission, vocation and profession all intersect. It’s another way of thinking about what drives us, what provides meaning. I heard about ikigai from a Ted Talk, and it brought to mind a conversation I had with a college student about what provides meaning in his life. After my talk with the Charlotte dad who offered his take on his shifting and evolving thoughts on what brought meaning to his life, I wanted to hear what a young person, just launching into adulthood, would think about meaning and purpose.
Exploring what Charlotte trails have to offer
There’s been a lot of talk about Charlotte’s Town Link Trail, which will eventually connect Mount Philo with the Charlotte Beach, but did you know that Charlotte has several other well-developed trail systems just waiting to be explored?
Simple Summer Salads
School is almost out and June is just around the corner. The season of potlucks, barbecues and picnics is upon us. When “what can I bring?” was met with “how about a salad?” I used to silently protest. Salads are so…unglamorous. “How about a signature cocktail?” I would counter. “Oh. You can bring that too.”
Types of investment properties and what they can mean for your wallet
Investment properties can come in all shapes and sizes. My two favorite options are investing in a property that needs work to flip or investing in an income-producing property. Very different approaches, each with its own risks.
Sports Report
With the seasons winding down, CVU spring sports have produced a couple of bumper crops among their teams. Women’s tennis stands out, having won all but one match by set scores of 7-0. The one match that did not measure up to perfection was, nonetheless, a 6-1 win over St. Johnsbury in the middle of last month. Senior Stephanie Joseph follows in her older sister Kathy’s footsteps as the number one singles player for the Redhawks (and, perhaps, the best in the state).
What is worth this degree of peril? Trophy rainbows!
My old Toyota truck rolls merrily down the highway on a late afternoon. The sun is shining brightly. The temperature is at a perfect setting—no one complains that it is too cool or too warm. It’s perfect. It’s one of those days that we bank on all winter.
Reflections on an astronautical collaboration
In doing this project, I was able to step back and allow my students to use their existing skills, self-identify areas where they need support and develop genuine questions.
Vermont House of Representatives presents Clemmons family with A Sense of Place resolution
Vermont state representatives Kiah Morris, D-Bennington, and Mike Yantachka, D-Charlotte, presented House Concurrent Resolution H.C.R. 364 to Dr. Jackson Clemmons and Mrs. Lydia Clemmons on Wednesday, May 2, in recognition of the Clemmons Family Farm’s A Sense of Place project,
Charlotte Library
Kids Programs & Activities
Thursday, May 17, at 3:15 p.m. THINK Tank: Cryptography. Learn the science of decoding messages and its importance in history. Solve some cryptography puzzles and create your own secret messages. For 4th-8th grades. Registration required. Please sign up for up to two THINK Tank programs in May. For more sessions, please request to be put on the waiting list.
Looking for new motivation to exercise?
Your Netflix account gets more viewing than the beautiful outdoors? Even though you have read all the research and know that aerobic exercise can lower your cholesterol, decrease your blood pressure, improve your appearance and stave off depression, you look for every excuse in the book for why you can’t exercise?
Repair Café coming up!
Do you need something fixed? Transition Town Charlotte and our Hinesburg friends will be hosting our second Repair Café from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 19, at the Hinesburg Town Hall. A Repair Café is a community gathering where we come together to socialize and fix each other’s stuff. Why?
What musical language says that other language doesn’t
I have long been a fan of musical words. An attempted writer myself, I look for those people who can put meaning into language that often goes beyond what she or he thought of to put down on paper. I have said before, I favor Mark Twain, who once wrote that he never knew what he was going to say until he began to write it.
Above the green and sturdy earth
I turn 53 this weekend, the same age at which my mother’s mother died of breast cancer. I have heard of people dreading this kind of thing: arriving at the age at which a parent or grandparent died. I don’t feel that kind of fear or doom so much as a kind of sorrow, that I never knew my grandmother. We have so many ways to detect, diagnose and treat breast cancer now that my mother and sister and I have been able to be vigilant, something I would imagine my grandmother wasn’t.
Weary Pilgrim – Spring sprung
I swear to you, I wait all year for the first week in May. It’s got that Christmas Eve-not-long-till-you-open-your-presents thing going for it, and if you’ve ever been to Ireland, then and only then do you have something to compare the greenery of a Vermont May to.