Eben Holderness

Bumper crop

For the first time in recent memory, one farm celebrates a bountiful yield of apples

Despite the perception that they only bustle with activity in the fall, apple orchards require constant year-round activity.

Nancy Miller and her son-in-law, Dean Miller, own, operate, and maintain the five-acre Cortland Hill Orchard off of Bonnyvale Rd. entirely on their own, pruning, planting, and harvesting apples and other fruits.

For nearly all the orchards in the state, this year is a heavy crop - more bountiful than any year in recent memory, according to Nancy Miller.

This year, fruit on some of the trees was so overabundant that the Millers “just had to pull some off when it was small and throw it away, otherwise all the fruit would have stayed very small and could have broken the limbs,” she said.

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What’s new around the county’s schools

Here's to a new school term, and here's your look at what's coming up in school districts around Windham County: Windham Southeast • Brattleboro Union High School principal Steve Perrin said the school will focus mostly on fine-tuning the ACE block, a twice-weekly, 40-minute block for students who need...

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Guilford Country Store ready for a new century

With renovations complete, a town fixture will re-open on June 28

Three years ago, following the sudden death of her husband, and with her health not what it was, Pat Good, owner and proprietor of the iconic Guilford Country Store for nearly three decades, approached the fledgling organization The Friends of Algiers Village to take on ownership. She explained to...

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Putney tries once again to secure state sidewalk grant

Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard met with Selectboard members on May 22 to discuss preparations in applying for a grant from the Vermont Agency of Transportation's Bicycle and Pedestrian Program to continue the three-phase sidewalk and bike lane project extending from the center of town to Landmark College. The program has approximately $4 million in available funds, of which the town would be applying for between $250,000 and $300,000 and matching it with around $60,000 from the municipal coffers. The grant...

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Firm defends data despite uproar

Widespread public anger regarding the recent preliminary property reappraisal letters sent out late last month dominated the Selectboard's May 6 meeting. The reappraisals, overseen by David Marazoff and his company, Marazoff Assessing Services, are being performed in preparation of the town's new Grand List, as well as for calculating property taxes and town expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year. According to the town's initial contract with Mazaroff, reappraisals should have been completed by May 1, but Selectboard chair Henry “Kit”

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Newfane Town Clerk asks board for funds to keep her assistant

In an effort to continue the employment of Newfane's Assistant Town Clerk Deidre Dunham, Town Clerk Gloria Cristelli approached the Selectboard for permission to tap a portion of unused office funds to close the difference as the fiscal year comes to a close. Dunham initially became assistant town clerk through Vermont Associates for Training and Development, (www.vermontassociates.org) an area nonprofit that provides training and jobs for older workers. During her tenure, Dunham has focused the majority of her time digitizing...

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‘A universal response’

When astronaut Gerald P. Carr looked down at a receding Earth from his spacecraft, bound for Skylab, the first thing that struck him was the scale of the pollution he saw being perpetually created far below. Oil fires burned, and rivers carried red silt from deforested areas well out into the open ocean, and all within a very thin envelope of atmosphere. Upon returning, he began gathering aerial images that illustrated what he had witnessed. He knew he had to...

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Cost of fixing covered bridge damage pegged at $5,750

Despite cosmetic damage and a repair bill of more than $5,000, the Dummerston Selectboard reported at their April 3 meeting that all is safe and (structurally) sound in the West Dummerston Covered Bridge, which was struck by a truck on March 31. Dummerston resident William Miller struck a cross beam and tore the bridge's trimboards over the East-West Road side entrance just after 5 pm, after failing to recognize the Budget rental truck he was driving to collect maple sap...

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