Vermont Almanac, Volume 5, is now available.
Vermont Almanac, Volume V, is now available in bookstores around the state and directly from For the Land Publishing. Again, it’s full of information, stories, poetry, essays, instructions, history, and art.
What I love about Vermont Almanac is how easy it is to pick up, thumb through it, and learn some interesting tidbit about the state’s flora and fauna. Every spring, I notice a small yellow flower in bloom along the side of the road. Every spring, I intend to look it up at home, but that intention is paving the infamous road. Thanks to my friend and neighbor Castle Freeman’s piece on “The Poor Man’s Daffodil,” I now know I’ve been curious about coltsfoot.
Mary Holland explains Cordyceps, a group of fungi that infect insects and reprogram their host’s behavior. It’s just a short, two-paragraph piece, but “Zombie Moths” is unforgettable, as is the accompanying photograph.
Sometimes, I flip through the book reading bits here and there; other times I sit down to read the longer essays. I especially liked “Doing the Storms for the Last Time,” a poignant story about finally getting around to replacing old windows in an old house in order to age in place, by Rick Zamore.
I also enjoy the sections titled “A Look Back.” These are historical pieces full of interesting and often quirky bits of Vermont lore. I’ve bookmarked “Not Down the Middle” for when I have time to read David Deen’s piece about the requirement for the Attorneys General of Vermont and New Hampshire to “perambulate” the border between the two states every seven years. In 2023, that task fell to Charity Clark and John Formella. What I want to know: Did they get their feet wet walking along the low-water mark on the Vermont side of the Connecticut River?
Best of all are the stories about the people who work, live, conserve, and appreciate the land that is Vermont. There may not be as many iconic dairy farms as there once were, but there are nevertheless myriad ways Vermonters work and appreciate the land that provides livelihoods, recreation, and renewal for sore souls.
There’s so much in Vermont Almanac, Volume V. I’ll be reading it all year. I hope you will be, too.
My essay “Stored Sunshine” reveals how the hot work of canning tomatoes in September is about so much more than merely preserving the garden’s bounty. You can find it on page 276 of Vermont Almanac, Volume V.
