Issue: June 2011
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The second-home economy
Some see double-edged sword in region’s growth as rural getaway By NED OLIVER Contributing writer GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. Chris Martin and Anita Hotchkis spent a recent weekday morning tending the ever-evolving garden that surrounds their waterfront home in Great Barrington. The couple finished building their home overlooking Round Pond last year, but they still spend read more
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State takes medicinal pot a step further
Marijuana dispensaries planned for patients under new Vermont law By CRAIG IDLEBROOK Contributing writer BENNINGTON, Vt. Some time ago, a constituent came to state Sen. Dick Sears with an unlikely complaint: He couldn’t get enough high-quality marijuana. The constituent, Mark Tucci, has multiple sclerosis and smokes medically prescribed marijuana to relieve chronic pain and muscle read more
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States work to save the last bats
White-nose illness demands ‘radical’ steps, some say By JUDY BERNSTEIN Contributing writer Five years after the first dead bats were found in a cave west of Albany, the disease known as white-nose syndrome has killed off most of the region’s hibernating bats. The situation has gotten so dire that wildlife officials in Vermont and New read more
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Pushing the frontier of wine making
Local flavors are priority for vintners in Columbia County By NED OLIVER Contributing writer GHENT, N.Y. Carlo DeVito’s first experience making wine wasn’t exactly encouraging. “My first batch was undrinkable,” he recalled. But from that inauspicious beginning, DeVito and his wife, Dominique, kept tinkering and tweaking to become award-winning vintners. They founded Columbia County’s first read more