Vermont Trappers Association holds annual rendezvous

Posted on September 14, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

A stream of black powder sparks follows the ball out of Gilbert Patnoe’s flintlock rifle. The Fletcher marksman was one of many black powder enthusiasts who tested their skill at the trappers’ rendezvous Saturday. Photo by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle 9-12-2012

BARTON — The Vermont Trappers Association’s annual rendezvous, held at Roaring Brook Park here Saturday and Sunday, brought out trappers from all over the state. They swapped stories, shopped for lures and scents, and gathered information.

One group spent the day testing their marksmanship with black powder rifles, many of them flintlocks.

In what is Floral Hall during the Orleans County Fair, a man wearing a green Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department shirt stood at a table behind two mounted cats. One, rounded and built low to the ground, stalked with bared teeth. The other, leggy and lean, peered alertly with its big front paws perched on a mossy rock.

The shorter of the pair was a bobcat, the taller a lynx. The man was Chris Bernier, a Fish and Wildlife Department scientist.

Fish and Wildlife Department scientist Chris Bernier stands between a pair of mounted cats at the Vermont Trappers Association Rendezvous Saturday. The one to his left is a lynx, distinguishable in the wild by its tail’s all black tip. To Mr. Bernier’s right is a bobcat, whose tail flashes white as it runs through the woods. Photos by Joseph Gresser

A steady stream of trappers waited to speak with Mr. Bernier about lynx, which have been making an appearance in the area.

The cats are more often found farther north, Mr. Bernier said, but Vermont is part of their peripheral habitat. An individual lynx can travel long distances, he said, pointing to a map of Maine. There, a study of radio tagged lynx showed one female roamed over 300 miles, he said.

The lynx is designated by federal authorities as a threatened species. Now that their presence in Vermont has been officially noted, Mr. Bernier said, the state is obligated to protect them, something it would want to do in any case.

Mr. Bernier emphasized that the Fish and Wildlife Department is not planning to put any new rules in place right now. The state does plan to study the numbers of lynx and set a population baseline.

With that tool it will be possible to determine over time whether the presence of the cats is a short-term phenomenon, or if they will be a permanent part of Vermont’s wildlife community.

Mr. Bernier said the study can then be repeated in ten years to see if the lynx population is the same, larger or smaller.

“We don’t want to put regulations in for creatures that might not be here in ten years,” he said.

Most of the best lynx sightings have occurred in Essex County, according to a map that Mr. Bernier brought with him to the rendezvous. But they are seen elsewhere in northern Vermont.

The mounted lynx had been shot in a Newport henhouse.

“Feathers were flying everywhere,” Mr. Bernier said, and in the confusion the chickens’ owner shot to protect his flock without realizing it was a lynx that was raiding the coop. No charges were filed against the shooter.

To one trapper, who wondered what he should do if he accidentally caught a lynx in one of his sets, Mr. Bernier advised, “Take a photo, free the lynx, and call the game warden.”

The trapper looked dubiously at the size of the lynx mount, and said he would be more likely to call the warden first and let him free the trapped cat.

Mr. Bernier told other curious trappers that they’re not likely to see lynx in southern Vermont. The cats subsist on snowshoe hares, he said, and are almost always found near their favored prey.

Lynx favor snowy areas and are well designed for that environment. Mr. Bernier pulled out a sheet of photos showing lynx tracks in the snow.

The oversized paw prints appeared to be less than an inch deep in the powder snow of a Maine woods. Mr. Bernier said he was wearing snowshoes when he snapped the pictures and still was standing in snow up to his waist.

One is most likely to see lynx in the winter. An easy way to tell them from their more common cousin, the bobcat, is by looking at their tails. The lynx’s appears to have been dipped in black ink, while the bobcat’s is dark only on the top. As the bobcat moves, an observer will see its tail flashing white.

Mr. Bernier said the lynx is leggier than the bobcat, but noted that his mount was slimmer than most of its species — hence its ill-fated trip to the henhouse. While lynx will feed opportunistically on mice, rodents and other creatures, they are rarely seen apart from hares, he said.

In Vermont history between the 1700s and the 1960s, only four mentions of lynx show up in the records, Mr. Bernier said. “In 1998 we started getting a spattering of sightings,” he said.

Now fish and game scientists are trying to get a handle on how widespread the cats have become.

Forester Luke Hardt of Irasburg told Mr. Bernier that he thinks he’s seen evidence of lynx in the Albany area. He said he was out surveying a sugar bush and as he returned to places he had flagged he spotted what he thinks were lynx tracks.

Mr. Bernier said it’s quite possible. “Cats are very visual,” he said. It’s very likely that they would be attracted to investigate the pennants blowing in the breeze.

Mr. Hardt encouraged Mr. Bernier to survey Albany and Lowell for lynx.

He expressed interest but said he needs to have access to a large area of land, and get the landowners’ permission to do the work.

Essex County is easier, he said, because of the large amount of federal land and because Plum Creek, a major landowner, is also is willing to allow access to its property.

Mr. Bernier also fielded other questions, many about an entirely different cat — the mountain lion. He said his office is on track to receive about 100 reports of mountain lion sightings in the state, many, but not all, of which are probably accurate.

“If they were all good sightings, we’d be overrun with mountain lions,” he said.

Mr. Bernier said the mountain lion that got killed on a Connecticut highway last year showed that the large cats can be found this far east. He pointed out that DNA testing showed that the Connecticut mountain lion had traveled 1,500 miles from the Black Hills of South Dakota.

He said he doubts there are currently any breeding pairs living in Vermont. Were they here, he said, he would expect to see more concrete signs, such as road kill or killed domestic animals.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

For more free articles from the Chronicle like this one, see our Featuring pages. For all the Chronicle‘s stories, pick up a print copy or subscribe, either for print or digital editions.

Stanstead: where granite, steam power and history converge

Posted on September 14, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Third generation sculptor Slavoljub Marjanovic moved from Sarajevo to Canada during the war that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. Wearing a breathing aparatus, he applied the finishing touches to the capstone of a clock tower that will honor Henry Seth Taylor, a Stanstead resident who built and drove a steam-powered automobile in 1867. Photos by Joseph Gresser

by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle 9-5-2012

STANSTEAD, Quebec — Stanstead is a granite town, one that lays claim to the title of granite capital of Canada. It is a community with pride in its history.

These two characteristics combine at a small plaza near the Stanstead border station. There, a fountain plays as a backdrop to two granite markers: one honoring the town’s main industry, the other paying tribute to a little known automotive pioneer, Henry Seth Taylor.

Later this month a 14-foot-tall clock tower will be added to the plaza to commemorate Mr. Taylor’s achievement.

The tower, almost entirely composed of Stanstead Gray granite, was designed by Guy Cloutier. On Saturday morning Mr. Cloutier stood in the parking lot in front of the Granite Exhibit and Museum of Stanstead.

Around him were piled blocks of granite donated by local businesses and a number of craftsmen, all hard at work.

Dave Dubois stood before one of the stone blocks, which rested on a pair of low metal trestles, and with a seeming lack of effort, tapped line in the stone with a broad chisel and small sledge. After he went over the line a couple of times a chunk of stone an inch or two think separated itself from the rest of the block and fell to the ground.

Mr. Dubois, having done the coarse portion of his work, proceeded to chip off flakes of granite as he whittled the stone to its proper dimensions.

Eventually he pulled out a tape measure and laid it across each diagonal.

“See that, 36 and one sixteenth, 36 and one sixteenth. How’s that for square?” He asked no one in particular before working his way down the vertical edges, squaring them off too.

Not far away stood Rock McCutcheon, a man whose name accurately suggests a family connection to the granite business. He and his brother and sister actually run the stone cutting firm that his father founded — Granit J. McCutcheon, Inc.

Mr. McCutcheon used a pneumatic chisel to cut the name of Stanstead’s three villages, Stanstead, Rock Island and Beebe, into a piece of stone that will sit near the base of the tower.

The speed with which Mr. McCutcheon does his precise carving presents a strong contrast to the length of time that his work is likely to survive.

Slavoljub Marjanovic is another who was raised into the stone trade. A third-generation sculptor originally from Sarajevo, Mr. Marjanovic now plies his trade in the U.S. as well as Canada.

For the memorial clock, Mr. Marjanovic was given the assignment of creating what Mr. Cloutier calls the hat, a granite pyramid with a stone sphere balanced atop it.

Mr. Cloutier said he got the design from the ornamentation of one of Stanstead’s public building, an old Customs house on the Canadian side of Maple Street.

He translated Mr. Marjanovic’s French as the sculptor spoke of his early education.

Mr. Marjanovic said his father used to take him to the quarries in the former Yugoslavia to show him the qualities granite from different areas of the quarry have.

That from the lower reaches of the quarry, Mr. Marjanovic explained, is denser that the stone that lays closer to the surface.

In those days, Mr. Marjanovic said, his father would pick the block of stone he wanted to carve.

“He would hit it with a hammer. When it rings like a bell, good. When not, he won’t touch it.” Mr. Marjanovic recalled.

Today, he said, one must work with the stone that is provided and make the best of it.

Mr. Marjanovic’s skill with granite and marble has brought him some interesting assignments.

He said he has done work on the Massachusetts State House and carved columns and the piece above the column for one of the libraries at Harvard University.

When a the façade of a building near the World Trade Center in New York City was gouged by a falling girder on September 11, 2001, Mr. Marjanovic said his skills were called on to marry the new and old stone work.

Mr. Marjanovic has a 26-year-old son who he is training to work in stone. But the sculptor said he is not sure yet if his son will follow the family trade.

Like Mr. Marjanovic, Mr. Cloutier has been affected by changes in the granite business. He said he started out drawing designs for monuments, a job that has largely been taken over by computers.

Today he does some design work, but also spends a couple of days a week working as a substitute teacher for the Derby Elementary School in Derby Line. The monument project has been in the works for 15 years, for a while it was put on the shelf but it was recently revived.

He pulled out a folder and turned to his rendering of the column. A stack of 11 granite blocks stand on a base that includes the stone carved by Mr. McCutcheon. Seven of the blocks are rough cut, while four have smooth faces into which are sandblasted the words “Place Henry Seth Taylor.”

The sandblasting was done by Mr. Dubois’ cousin, Reg Dubois, who worked in a shorts and a T-shirt. He began by taking pieces of rubber backed with a sticky substance and carefully adhering it to the stone.

Letters were cut into the rubber, and Mr. Dubois gently removed the area that was to be cut into the stone. Once that was done he filled a tank with about 35 pounds of fine, white sand.

Mr. Dubois connected the tank to the air compressor that also ran Mr. McCutcheon’s chisel and donned a canvas hood with thick plastic windows. Pointing his sandblasting tool at the stone he quickly cut into the stone as a miniature sand dune gathered at his feet.

When all the letters were finished to his satisfaction, Mr. Dubois took spray paint and, without removing the mask, blackened the newly cut inscription.

At least one portion of the project was completed before Saturday. Mr. Cloutier pointed out a hollow box made of black African marble. The clock face, he said, would be mounted inside the box.

Mr. Cloutier said he had hoped to make the entire monument using local stone, but found that he would need darker granite to contrast with the white clock face.

He said that the town will spend only $5,000 or $6,000 on the monument, which he estimated would cost $80,000 if everything had to be paid for.

Mr. Cloutier also explained what made Henry Seth Taylor worth memorializing. The Stanstead resident invented a steam-powered car in 1867 and drove it around the area.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t invent brakes,” Mr. Cloutier said, and the car went out of control on the hill near his fountain and crashed into a building. According to the inscription on that monument it may have been the first automobile accident in Canadian history.

Mr. Taylor jumped and survived, but he gave up his automotive ambitions and consigned the wreck to his barn. Rediscovered in the 1960s, the pioneering automobile today has a place of honor in the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa, Ontario.

Not all those working Saturday were there to pay tribute to Mr. Taylor. Andre Parent was occupied in engraving a forest scene into a monument-size block of granite.

Mr. Parent used a power tool to cut through the polished surface of the stone, using his own drawing as a guide.

He had a simple explanation as to how he came into his occupation. “I was born in town here, and I’m naturally artistic. I just fell into it.”

Michel Bornais, on the other hand, is trying to move a little out of his current occupation.

The chef-owner of Resto-Crêperie Le Tomifobia in Beebe, is also a part-time sculptor.

He offered to work in public, Mr. Cloutier said, and was provided with space and a piece of stone.

His hair covered in a red bandana and wearing a large set of ear protectors, Mr. Bornais alternated between a power saw and hammer and chisel as he cut away at his stone.

“I’ve been a chef for 30 years. I’m trying to quit to do something else. Something I like.”

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

For more free articles from the Chronicle like this one, see our Featuring page. For all the Chronicle‘s stories, pick up a print copy or subscribe, either for print or digital editions.

Nocturnal animals damage Albany cemetery

Posted on August 28, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Marcel Locke inspects damage created by animals peeling back dead turf in the Albany cemetery each night. Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar

by Bethany M. Dunbar copyright the Chronicle 8-22-2012

ALBANY — Skunks or raccoons are being blamed on nightly episodes of tearing up the grass at the cemetery in Albany Village.

“It’s a crying shame,” said Marcel Locke, who is helping the cemetery caretaker, Waldo Potter, try to address the problem.

“If we could get some people in there to turn this over, and then we’d get some rain, we’re all set,” he said. He is looking into getting a work crew from a prison as voluntary help. Mr. Locke has gone back many mornings himself and turned the turf back over, right side up. But the next night there’s just more damage.

Mr. Locke said he believes the problem is created by skunks eating grubs, which are easier to get when the ground is this dry — so dry that the grass is dead in large patches.

“This is a sandy loam soil, and it dries out very quickly,” he said. “The roots are dead. There’s no root system left.”

He added that Albany doesn’t have money to hire anyone, and water is so low in the village that he doesn’t see how they could water the grounds.

“All of our resources are low on water,” Mr. Locke said. “Our springs are low. The worst part is that there is no money at all.”

The cemetery is about five acres, and shaded patches still have some green grass and are clearly exempt from the damage. Low spots that seem to be a little wetter also still have green grass. They have not been disturbed, but large sections of the cemetery have been dug up. Huge chunks of dead turf are peeled back and small paw prints are visible in the dusty earth. An occasional grub can be seen, and Mr. Locke said he’s seen grub holes the size of his thumb (which is a good-sized thumb).

Doug

Reporter’s notebook: Condor recovery is a long-term project

Posted on August 22, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

This young female condor’s head has not yet turned orange. Photo by Katie Dunbar

by Bethany M. Dunbar

copyright the Chronicle, 8-22-2012

BIG SUR, California — In 1987, there were just 27 California condors left in the world. The last wild bird was taken into captivity — a highly controversial move to try to keep the species in existence.

Two years later my daughter was born. Katie Ann Dunbar always had a fascination with dragons, and that seems to have translated into a scientific interest in birds. Armed with a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology, she helped with bobolinks in Vermont and falcons and other raptors in California.

Those experiences led her to Big Sur, where she is working to help condors make it on their own.

Despite all our human efforts, the birds are still extremely rare — due mostly to problems created for them by people. Fragments of lead bullets are their biggest threat. Another problem is plastic trash scraps and bottle caps.

There are currently about 400 condors in the world, half of them in captivity. The captive breeding program is working, and condors have been reintroduced to the wild. Some are raising chicks the old-fashioned way, on the edge of a rock cliff somewhere.

There are condors in California, Arizona and Mexico.

In July, my sweetheart, Jim Bowes, and I had the incredible privilege of getting a good look at these birds ourselves when we visited Katie.

One day we got to go with Katie to where she perches on a cliff opposite the nest, watching through a high-powered scope as the wild condor mother nuzzles its chick lovingly. These birds are enormous. The baby chick, covered with gray down, is 19 pounds.

Under ideal circumstances, condors can live to be 60 years old. They keep their mates and are extremely social. The wild flock has an easily seen hierarchy when eating. The matriarchs and patriarchs are first. Kids wait their turn.

These birds, when fully grown, have a wingspan of nine and a half feet. Seeing one in flight, skimming through the fog overhead, is a breath-taking experience. Native Americans revered a legendary thunderbird, which some believe was a condor or an even larger relative of it. It’s easy to see why. These dramatic birds make an impression.

Condors’ wings are mostly black with a white pattern on both the top and bottom. They have a feathery ruff around their necks, and adults have orange bald heads. They eat only carrion, and the bald heads come in handy for keeping clean while tearing the meat from something dead.

Katie’s employer is the Ventana Wildlife Society (VWS). Founded in 1977, VWS is a nonprofit with a mission to restore wildlife and educate the youth of central California. VWS relies heavily on interns and volunteers. She is an intern and has just accepted a second six-month stint.

The VWS helped bring back bald eagles. The group also worked to help songbirds and monarch butterflies and to restore habitat. The small team does workshops and classes for youngsters, and older students can apply for an eco-experience — a one-day or overnight experience with the California condors.

Jim and I had our own personal eco-experience while visiting. Katie took us up to the VWS base camp for the night. The base camp is high on top of a mountain overlooking the ocean, in the middle of an 80-acre property — the condor sanctuary.

The land in this area of the country stops abruptly at the ocean’s edge. It makes for some incredible views of the ocean from the cliffs with rocks and narrow beaches below. Highway 1, which winds around the edges of the cliffs, is in itself a tourist destination.

The camp is 20 miles up a tiny, winding one-lane dirt road perched on the edge of the cliffs. There were four locked gates to go through.

My daughter seems perfectly comfortable driving the F-150 up this lane with a frozen dead calf carcass in the back of the truck. She is also fine in eight-lane traffic to Los Angeles, where injured birds are treated at the zoo.

The calf carcass, provided by a neighboring dairy farmer, is lead-free food for the condors. This is part of what the VWS does — provide the birds with a source of food that won’t make them sick. In order to keep the wild birds from associating food with humans, this is done under the cover of darkness while the condors roost nearby. In the morning they can be watched, through the scope, while they have their meal.

The VWS has a flight pen where an injured bird is staying right now, and another one perches on the pen, offering some company? Or Katie thinks maybe it is taunting its friend.

All the 70 birds in this wild flock have been captured at one time in their lives, in order to put tags on their wings and small tracking transmitters, so they can be identified from far away. Part of Katie’s job is tracking the birds to make sure they are all moving around normally. If one stops moving for too long, she and her colleagues will look for it to make sure it’s all right.

The birds still sometimes die from lead poisoning, which happens if they eat a fragment of a bullet that might be in a carcass or a gut pile that a hunter left behind. Something I didn’t know: A lead-based bullet loses 30 percent of its mass on impact with the animal. Tiny fragments scatter through the meat, which is a hazard not only to the big birds but also to humans who eat meat shot with lead bullets.

As a precautionary measure, they trap each bird once or twice a year to test their blood for lead. If high lead is found the bird is sent to the Los Angeles zoo for treatment. Chelation treatment takes one to three weeks of daily injections. Chelation is a chemical process similar to what is done with children who get lead poisoning.

Sometimes a bird requires surgery to get a lead fragment out of its guts.

One of the missions of the VWS is to get hunters to switch to copper or other non-lead bullets. Although eating copper is not good for you either, copper doesn’t fragment the way lead does. The VWS provides free boxes of copper bullets to hunters in the condors’ range, and reports that 93 percent of hunters surveyed said the copper bullets worked just as well.

In condor country, lead bullets are banned, but some hunters still use them out of habit.

Another hazard for the birds is trash. Condors in the wild eat bits of seashells and feed them to their chicks, to aid digestion (probably for the same reason chickens peck the dirt) or possibly for the calcium. A small piece of plastic, broken glass, or a bottle cap seems like a seashell, and they eat them and feed them to the chicks. The chicks can’t digest this stuff. Their stomachs fill up with it, and they can actually starve to death. So the VWS checks the chicks every so often, taking them down from the nest to do blood tests and palpate their stomachs to feel for odd shapes.

If a condor chick is full of plastic and bottle caps, it goes off to the zoo for surgery. It can’t go back to the wild until it’s grown up. Then it has to learn how to be a wild bird all over again. It will be matched with an older mentor bird.

Despite these issues, condors are definitely doing better than they were. The goal of the recovery program is two flocks in the wild of 150 birds and 15 breeding pairs each.

According to Return of the Condor, The Race To Save Our Largest Bird From Extinction by John Moir, a 2004 forecast by researchers at Stanford University predicts that unless things change, about 10 percent of the 10,000 bird species on Earth will go extinct by the end of the century. An additional 15 percent will be so drastically reduced they will “no longer be ecologically significant.”

What are the consequences of these drastic losses of biodiversity? No one knows, but it won’t be good.

Katie Dunbar watches a condor mother take care of its 19-pound chick. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

During our visit with Katie, I read the condor book as quickly as if it was a suspenseful novel. It’s well-written, telling the story of the people who have devoted so much time and energy to saving these birds, and the stories of the individual birds as well. John Moir is an award-winning author and science writer who lives in Santa Cruz, California. The book was published in 2006, so it is up to date.

Another place to get more information, if you are interested, is the VWS website: ventanaws.org.

You might see some photos of a young woman who grew up in West Glover and graduated from Lake Region Union High School on there.

contact Bethany M. Dunbar at bethany@bartonchronicle.com

For more free articles from the Chronicle like this one, see our Featuring pages. For all the Chronicle‘s stories, pick up a print copy or subscribe, either for print or digital.

Eagle Point wildlife refuge dedicated to Michael Dunn

Posted on August 14, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Megan and Miles Goldsmith of Burlington take turns observing a nesting osprey visible through spotting scopes. The children and their mother, Gail Rose, are neighbors to the newly created Eagle Point Wildlife Management Area formed out of the Michael Dunn property in Derby, Vermont. Photo by Richard Creaser

by Richard Creaser

DERBY — Michael Dunn’s generous donation of 457 acres on Eagle Point in Derby was celebrated Friday morning. Mr. Dunn, who died in 2007, donated the land to the federal government as a stipulation in his will. The town of Derby appraised the Eagle Point property at $2,092,600.

As generous a bequest as it was, its value to the natural community exceeds the land’s price tag. With a unique mixture of wetlands, agricultural land, pasture and forest, the Eagle Point property provides critical habitat to dozens of rare and endangered plants and animals. Placing the land in the public trust also ensures that future generations of Vermonters and visitors will retain lakeshore access as well as the ability to enjoy the wildlife resident therein.

“What we’ve always loved about Eagle Point is how undeveloped it is,” neighbor Gail Rose said. “The fact that Mr. Dunn sought to have it preserved ensures that the quality of the experience will remain.”

Ms. Rose and her family bought one of the lakeside cottages that formed part of the original property. As an owner of the northernmost of the cottages along the east side of Lake Memphremagog, Ms. Rose expressed her pleasure at having the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as her new neighbor.

The Eagle Point property is the newest addition to the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge based in Swanton. Although overseen by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the property will be directly managed by the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife through a unique partnership.

That partnership was created owing in part to the unusual nature of Mr. Dunn’s bequest. He had stipulated a deadline of September 1, 2010, for transfer of ownership to the federal government. If the federal government failed to take ownership by that deadline, the property would be sold, with the proceeds going to support the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

The Vermont Land Trust entered the picture working alongside the estate’s trustees, Community Financial Services Group. Normally, the Land Trust purchases a development easement which protects the property, Vermont Land Trust President Gil Livingston said. Given that the land was being transferred to the federal government, however, this was not possible.

“Our role in this was as a facilitator,” Mr. Livingston said. “We put together the partners and got the dialogue going. This was a challenging situation but the ultimate outcome was so great it was a challenge we gladly accepted.”

As the agents for Mr. Dunn’s estate, Community Financial found itself in a position trying to weigh Mr. Dunn’s wishes against bureaucratic process. For example, though federal wildlife refuges do not typically permit overnight camping, Mr. Dunn insisted that primitive campsites be provided for the enjoyment of canoeists on the Northern Forests Canoe Trail.

“This was one of the most challenging estates we have ever handled,” said Janet Cartee of Community Financial Services Group. “But I couldn’t help but be excited about being part of the process.”

Under ordinary circumstances, federal land acquisition is a long and slow process. Because of the rigid timeline, the government had to move far faster than it normally would, Sue McMahon said. Ms. McMahon is the deputy chief for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast Region.

“Getting the job done in a year was like a light year in the federal bureaucracy,” Tom Berry of Senator Patrick Leahy’s office acknowledged.

Wide-ranging support from Vermont’s Congressional delegation, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and local, state and town representatives enabled the project to pass through an expedited process, Mr. Berry said. The end result was the creation of a joint conservation effort that protects a unique habitat, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Pat Berry said.

Though the refuge is still a work in progress, Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge Manager Ken Sturm extended his thanks to the Student Conservation Association (SCA). The SCA helped to develop the trails and amenities that will make the refuge a visitor attraction.

Students in the SCA program are young people with an interest in conservation, Gary King, spokesman for the SCA said. Their involvement in this project highlights the fact that America’s young people do take pride and ownership of the nation’s precious natural resources, Mr. King said.

Michael Hickcox, a longtime friend and neighbor of Mr. Dunn, spoke warmly of the efforts taken to fulfill Mr. Dunn’s final wishes. His belief that the land should be preserved was widely known among his friends and associates, Mr. Hickcox said.

“It’s hard to think about Eagle Point without thinking about Mike,” he said. “This is exactly what Mike had in mind for it. When the farmhouse was torn down it was very poignant but very beautiful at the same time.”

That powerful connection was what made Friday’s ceremony so appropriate. In honoring Mr. Dunn’s generous gift, the state and the nation acknowledge Mr. Dunn’s enduring love of the land, Mr. Livingston said. Though Mr. Dunn was a Canadian national, he expressed his appreciation of the United States by making this unique gift. Mr. Dunn also bequeathed his property on the Canadian side of the border to the province of Quebec, Mr. Livingston added.

“He deeply appreciated this place and honored Americans by making this particular legacy,” Mr. Livingston said. “It’s a spectacular outcome.”

At the conclusion of Friday’s dedication ceremony, Mr. Sturm unveiled a bronze plaque that will be placed on the property acknowledging Mr. Dunn’s generous contribution. That plaque will evermore honor a man who loved the land so deeply that he ensured it would be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations.

contact Richard Creaser at nek_scribbler@hotmail.com

Bernie Henault of Island Pond lived a life of advocacy

Posted on August 1, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Bernard Henault of Island Pond.

by Paul Lefebvre

copyright the Chronicle August 1, 2012

MONTPELIER — As a one-legged fellow, Bernie Henault had a long stride: a stride that carried him through the doors of one social agency after another in the Kingdom and into the State House committee rooms here in the state’s capital.

Perhaps it was fitting and most appropriate then that the last tribute paid to Bernie was in the cafeteria where politicians and lobbyists mingle over lunch and pitch issues.

“He spent a great deal of his life roaming through these halls and that’s the reason why we’re meeting in this cafeteria,” said Sharon Henault, Bernie’s wife and partner in working for the poor and those who must cope with a physical disability.

Saturday’s potluck tribute to Mr. Henault, who died June 4, came on what would have been his seventieth birthday. A familiar figure at town meetings as well an animated talker on the streets of Island Pond, Mr. Henault was indefatigable in his advocacy for social justice for the poor and the disabled. Nor was he afraid to step outside the box.

“He was the best antidote to group think I know,” said Susan Yuan of Jericho, who served on low-income committees with Bernie.

She said he had a larger vision than most of the other committee members in that he saw that advocacy begins at home. She noted that Bernie urged other advocates to take the issues that affected their clients back to their local school boards and town meetings.

Ed Paquin of Montpelier, who once served as a state legislator in the House and is the current executive director of Disability Rights of Vermont — a nonprofit agency that provides legal representation to its clients — described Mr. Henault as a tenacious fighter for the cause and one not easy to appease.

“He was a great guy to call your bluff,” recalled Mr. Paquin, who gets around in a wheelchair.

Mr. Henault was 17 when he was struck by a drunk driver that led to the amputation of one of his legs, according to an interview he gave recently to a reporter with the Rutland Herald.

A man with an empty pant leg who relied solely on crutches, Mr. Henault was equally as passionate about education as he was social justice.

He served on the North Country Union High School Board and along with Sharon adopted two biracial girls, whom he guided on what to expect in a Northeast Kingdom public school system that historically sees few people of color.

Samantha, who is now a 21-year old single mom, living at home with her mother and going to college, recalled her public school experience as the “only girl with two disabled parents and the only mixed girl.”

Bernie, she said, taught her to feel proud that she was different, told her to hold her head high.

“He was always protective of me. Always,” she said, as she contended with a different problem in the same hallways where her father had once bent a legislator’s ear: Her two-year old daughter, Jaelyn, was acting up.

A Democrat who worked for Robert Kennedy in the party’s 1968 presidential primary, Mr. Henault was no stranger to electoral politics. He repeatedly ran for a seat in the Vermont House and, although he never won, his ardor for public service never diminished.

No doubt it was a trait that U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders admired and praised when he showed up Saturday in the closing moments of the tribute.

Their relationship dated back to the 1970s when the two worked together on low-income issues, recalled Mrs. Henault in a telephone interview this week.

“If Bernie was looking down from above I know he’d be pleased,” she said, adding that the two men were friends as well as political allies.

People who worked with Mr. Henault recalled that he had a big voice and a pointing finger when it came to advocating on behalf of his clients.

Testimonials Saturday recalled that Bernie told his clients to see themselves as differently able people, never disabled, which gave them a different outlook about themselves and the world.

More than one speaker remembered him as the person who initiated the first wheelchair, “Mini Olympics” games in the state. Or as the powerful voice who spearheaded the movement for independent living in the Kingdom.

Assertiveness was one of his traits.

“He was a guy to push you all he could if you represented the system,” noted one of the speakers.

Sarah Laundervill remembered meeting Bernie when she was teaching a class at Springfield College’s satellite campus in St. Johnsbury. Her students were making their final presentations in a course on social work. Bernie, who had come to the campus on another matter, stuck his head in the classroom to listen. He wasn’t impressed.

“You must do better if you’re going out into the community,” he told one of the students.

Afterwards, Ms. Laundervill said she made a point of engaging Bernie in a conversation, but recalled having a difficult time getting him to listen to her.

Someone in the group quickly picked up the thread of her story, saying that at this moment Bernie was no doubt up in heaven telling them how they could do it better.

“I don’t think God could get a word in edgewise,” she concluded.

People Saturday characterized Bernie as someone who was infallibly human, someone who had his weaknesses as well as his strengths. But most agreed that as an advocate he was a person who put the human in human services.

“It’s going to be very Bernie-like,” said Sharon, when she earlier characterized how she expected the tribute would play out.

“Very informal with people sitting around eating and talking.”

That’s pretty much the way it went with one exception: On behalf of the Vermont Statewide Independent Living Council, Harriet Hall presented a plaque to Mrs. Henault in recognition of Bernie’s efforts for the group.

contact Paul Lefebvre at paul@bartonchronicle.com

For more free articles from the Chronicle like this one, see our Featuring page. For all the Chronicle‘s stories, pick up a print copy or subscribe, either for print or digital.

In Greensboro: Cow power produced from a medium-size herd

Posted on July 25, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Peter Gebbie checks the readings on his new methane generator. Although he admits to being slow with computers, his wife, Sandra, said Mr. Gebbie turns out to be very good with the high-tech system. Photos by Joseph Gresser

copyright the Chronicle July 25, 2012

by Joseph Gresser

GREENSBORO — On Sunday morning Peter Gebbie had finished milking. The truck from the St. Albans co-op was loading and his hands were moving out to get the second cut of hay in.

But there was more for him to do. He and his wife, Sandra, headed toward a new building behind one of his barns. A sign on the door wisely warned against entering without hearing protection. Inside an engine roared.

Mr. Gebbie grabbed a clipboard and walked around the room checking readouts at various points along a complicated series of pipes.

He looked pleased at the results. “Eighty kilowatts,” he said. When they first started the generator about two weeks ago, it produced only 20 kilowatts.

When it is running at full speed the methane generator will produce 150 kilowatts of power.

Switching the generator on was the culmination of a process that began in Newport a little more than five years ago at a meeting sponsored by the state Agency of Agriculture. That meeting at the East Side Restaurant brought together dairy farmers who were interested in the process of turning manure and other organic matter into methane and eventually electricity.

At the time the Gebbies were milking 200 cows at Maplehurst Farm. The farmers who were getting into the electricity business had herds ten times the size of his.

On Sunday, Mr. Gebbie recalled that when he first started calling firms that design and install methane digesters he was turned away.

“The guys who sold digesters laughed at you,” he said, “unless you were at least a 1,000-cow farm.”

Mr. Gebbie persisted and eventually his calls started getting returned. He said that it seemed to him that the digester builders had worked their way through the big farmers and were ready to deal with someone his size.

While they were investigating the possibility of building a methane digester, the Gebbies doubled the size of their herd to 400 cows.

They were fortunate in having long before set up their barns with slatted floors through which the cows tread their manure and bedding. Gravity was enough to move this fuel into the digester, a round tank with a flexible cover.

Manure will produce methane with or without special equipment, but left to nature the volatile hydrocarbon will go into the atmosphere where it is a potent greenhouse gas.

Mr. Gebbie said he has heard it has a 24 to 25 times greater effect than carbon dioxide.

The Gebbies knew that things were going well when they saw the cover on the digester begin to balloon upwards. That indicated that gas was beginning to build up a head of pressure.

From the digester the gas goes into a scrubber which removes impurities to protect the engine of the generator. Mr. Gebbie said he is lucky because the gas produced by his manure is low in sulfur.

From the scrubber the gas goes to the generator or, if for some reason the generator is down for a while, through an upright pipe which is set up to burn extra gas to keep it from going into the atmosphere.

Once the manure is run through the digester, it could be spread on fields. The Gebbies have chosen to separate the liquids from the solids, spread the former and use the latter as bedding.

Levels need to be checked throughout the system. Peter Gebbie stands in front of the tank that cleans the methane before it is fed into the generator.

Sawmills used to give away sawdust, Mr. Gebbie noted. Today they use everything, and the price of bedding is a major cost of doing business. By producing his own bedding, Mr. Gebbie said, he can save as much as $20,000 a year.

Studies show the bedding produced by digesters reduces the incidence of mastitis and results in a lower somatic cell count, an indicator of a healthy cow, Mr. Gebbie said.

Of course, electricity is the main product of the system. The Gebbies have a contract to supply 150 kilowatts of power to the Hardwick Electric Company through the state’s Sustainably Priced Energy Enterprise Development (SPEED) program.

They are guaranteed a price of 14 cents a kilowatt-hour, well above the current market price of four cents. In addition they can sell Renewable Energy Credits (REC) through the Cow Power program started by Central Vermont Public Service and now under the auspices of Green Mountain Power.

Mr. Gebbie said the REC credits bring in an additional three to four cents a kilowatt-hour, less a small brokerage fee.

The system cannot operate at full capacity with only the manure produced on his farm, Mr. Gebbie said. To get to the full 150 kilowatts, he will need to find an outside source of carbon.

Typically that means a liquid such as whey, he said.

The 150-kilowatt limit is convenient in one regard. Power from the system can be moved on a simple single-phase line, the sort that typically serves a home.

Large scale generators on the farms in Franklin and Addison counties may generate more than a megawatt of power and require a very expensive three-phase service to move electricity off the farm.

In addition to power and bedding, the generator can also provide heat for the Gebbies’ home and milking parlor, and hot water, Mr. Gebbie said. The potential savings could be as great as those from the bedding, but they will require substantial investment in underground pipes, he added.

The digester cost “$1.5-million and climbing,” Mr. Gebbie said. Grants from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Department of Energy and the state Department of Public Service’s Clean Energy Development Fund helped pay between half and three-quarters of the cost, he added.

“Most people would like to see things paid in five years,” Mr. Gebbie said.

contact Joseph Gresser at joseph@bartonchronicle.com

For more free articles from the Chronicle like this one, see our Featuring page. For all the Chronicle‘s stories, pick up a print copy or subscribe, either for print or digital.

Canaan teacher looks at Chinese education firsthand

Posted on July 18, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Canaan Memorial High School English teacher Jason Di Giulio enjoys the panoramic view from atop the iconic Great Wall during a June trip to China. As a 2011 winner of an award for teaching excellence from the National Education Association, Mr. Di Giulio was one of 35 American Global Learning Fellows chosen to visit and explore the Chinese culture and educational system. Photos courtesy of Jason De Giulio

by Richard Creaser

LYNDONVILLE — Sitting in a booth at the Ms. Lyndonville Diner, Canaan Memorial High School English teacher Jason Di Giulio of Sheffield sipped at his coffee, his mind racing to organize ten days worth of recent experiences in China. Mr. Di Giulio, a 2011 winner of a National Education Association (NEA) excellence in teaching award, traveled to China to explore the country and its educational system. He and 34 other NEA Foundation winners spent ten days there between June 19 and 29.

Winning a trip to the Orient may seem like a just reward for some of the nation’s hardest working educators. But this was no pleasure junket. Sponsored by the NEA Foundation, the Pearson Foundation and Education First, the purpose of the trip was to expose the teachers, also known as Global Learning Fellows, to a country and culture that few Western students have occasion to see firsthand.

“The purpose of this trip was to raise global awareness,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “Students need to understand that we are living in a flat world. The competition for jobs isn’t coming from Massachusetts or Connecticut or Maine, it’s coming from China.”

While in China the Global Learning Fellows met with representatives of FASTCO, the Chinese based manufacturer for Fastenal, as well as representatives from Intel Corporation. They learned that what international corporations want and need are independent thinkers who are capable of responding quickly to changing circumstances.

“It’s not something that the Chinese educational model really encourages,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “I think of the Chinese educational model as a factory model — everyone comes out of it knowing what they need to know to do the job they have prepared for. It’s a model based on rote memorization and testing, with testing being proof of success.”
But a system based on knowing and retaining specific information does not encourage free thinking. That’s the one area where the Western educational system may hold a distinct advantage over China, Mr. Di Giulio said.

Gradually, the U.S. appears to be moving toward that same model with standardized tests that create an objective measure of success. But at what cost?

“What we learned is that the factory model doesn’t take into account what employers are looking for,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “We need to develop and refine our curriculum to include more problem solving and critical thinking. We need to be able and willing to teach several methods and allow students to adapt to the model that best fits their learning style.”

The Chinese focus on excellence is bred from necessity and was exemplified not only in the classrooms but also in the everyday world, Mr. Di Giulio said.

Thirty-five American Global Learning Fellows representing the best and brightest American teachers visited China in June. Here the group poses with students at the Langxia Middle School outside of Shanghai. Prior to the trip, Canaan Memorial High School English teacher Jason Di Giulio embarked on an ambitious project to learn basic Mandarin Chinese. “Even knowing just a little bit of their language opened doors that might otherwise have been inaccessible to me,” Mr. Di Giulio said of the experience. “It made me realize how language affects and sculpts a culture.”

“The only students we saw at the vocational school and the middle school were the students who conform to the idea of the norm,” he said. “The students who were perceived as below the norm went to their own school. This is quite the opposite of what we are trying to do here in the West.”

Mr. Di Giulio spoke of the morning he ordered an omelet from the hotel kitchen. It took the cook three tries to produce an omelet worthy of his guest. To Mr. Di Giulio’s eye, any of the three would have sufficed.
“That’s the kind of pressure they have in the job market there,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “If you can’t do the job, there’s always someone else, a billion someone elses, waiting to step in. That creates tremendous pressure to be the absolute best at whatever it is you do.”

Striving to be the best certainly isn’t a bad thing, Mr. Di Giulio stressed. But the important part is the striving and not necessarily the success.

“Innovation is about taking risks, and taking risks means that sometimes you will fail,” he said. “Entrepreneurship is about taking a risk, and if it doesn’t work, you try again. When you are focused entirely on success as the end result you become unwilling to take any risks and innovation suffers.”

The Chinese model has plenty to offer to Western educators both for what it does right as well as where it falls short. Educators who are focused on a specific subject and who have adequate time to prepare and deliver instruction can achieve better results. And when the entire family promotes and supports a student’s education, chances of success are exponentially higher.

Chinese teachers deliver instruction in a single 80-minute class once per day. They devote the remainder of their time to preparing for the next day’s class and reviewing test data. This is in marked contrast to American teachers who spend most of their day with their students and who do some of their preparation during free time in the school day with the balance taking place at home.

“The temptation is there to say that their system is working,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “With focused dedication, parental and political support, students can achieve great things. But there is also a warning to be had.”
The suicide rate among high school seniors is troublingly high. Many students feel smothered by the inescapable cultural pressure to excel.

“In China the mandatory retirement age for men is 60 years old and 55 years old for women,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “It is also expected that the children will take care of their parents in their old age. In the era of the one child policy, that means that a couple must earn enough to support not only themselves and their child but also up to four parents.”

In a country that boasts as many honor students as the U.S. has students, the competition to land positions in the best universities is fierce. In China a university education spells the difference between a poor-paying job as a laborer or access to a coveted job in the middle class with room to advance.

“I don’t think we fully appreciate how important access to higher education is in this country,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “The difference here is that, as long as you are willing to find the money or carry the debt, eventually you will be able to get into a university. In China, if you can’t get into a Chinese university or can’t find the money to attend a school overseas, you don’t have many options left.”

The Chinese system puts tremendous pressure on students with its focus on testing and measurements of success, but in some ways the Western educational system is working toward an opposite extreme.

“There has to be some happy medium between rote memorization and measured achievement and creativity, hugs and self-esteem,” Mr. Di Giulio said. ‘There is certainly a group that is willing to shout and say that our educational system is broken. If I look at the results of my students and see what they have achieved, I know it’s not broken.”
Finding an objective standard to measure American students against was a laudable but ultimately doomed element of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Mr. Di Giulio said. The idea that all students would be suitably proficient in all areas by 2014 was an admirable goal. The trouble was that the goal faced barriers test data doesn’t measure.

“If I could ensure that every kid had three good meals a day, had their parents read to them since they were two years old, got enough sleep and received proper medical care, and their schools were fully funded, I would say achieving 100 percent proficiency was entirely possible,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “But that’s not the world we live in. The law alternately encourages or disciplines schools for failing to meet the challenge without addressing the underlying causes.”

The system is further flawed by allowing each state to set its own standards. Although intended to measure and compare students around the country, the lack of common standards makes the comparisons ultimately futile, he said.
“Until we take into account the global standard that our students are being measured against, we really can’t accomplish anything truly meaningful,” Mr. Di Giulio said. “We do need to adopt a universal standard that recognizes what every student needs to know in order to become successful Americans.”

He said he plans to incorporate less fiction and more analytical works in his own instruction. Developing a stronger ability to problem solve and enhance analytical skills is critical if American students are to compete in the global marketplace.

“Creative thinking and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances is, and should continue to be, the focus of the American educational system,” he said. “In order to do that, we need a better understanding of the world. It’s no longer about competing for jobs with students in Michigan or California. It’s about competing with students from China and India and other parts of the developing world.”

contact Richard Creaser at nek_scribbler@hotmail.com

Interview: Craftsbury’s Dave Bett wins Grammy Award

Posted on July 10, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Dave Bett, design director at Columbia Records, sits in his Craftsbury home with his new Grammy award. Photos by Natalie Hormilla

by Natalie Hormilla

CRAFTSBURY — The public library here will have a special speaker on Wednesday night, July 11. Dave Bett, design director at Columbia Records in New York City, will give an informal presentation on the Bruce Springsteen box set The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, for which Mr. Bett won a Grammy Award earlier this year.

He won the award along with his colleague, Michelle Holme, for the box set’s design. They won in the category Best Boxed/Special Limited Edition Package. The Grammy was a first for both designers.

Mr. Bett said that work on the box set took about three years to complete.
“A lot of it is research, anthropology, detective work, to find all the pieces that make the artist come alive,” he said.

The box set includes three CDs of music: one is the original 1978 Bruce Springsteen album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and the other two consist of songs that didn’t make it on to that album. The set also includes three DVDs: one disc chronicles the making of the 1978 album, using footage shot by a friend of Mr. Springsteen’s at that time mixed with some new footage, and the other two discs are of live performances — one in 1978 in Houston, Texas, and another in 2009 in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The CDs and DVDs are housed in a facsimile of a blue, spiral bound Eagle Line notebook Mr. Springsteen kept while working on his fourth album leading up to its 1978 release, which is where Mr. Bett’s work really shines.

Mr. Bett and Ms. Holme created a sort of scrapbook of words by and images of Mr. Springsteen. They used snapshots, stills from videos, and copies of the many pages of lyrics, notes, lists and random thoughts Mr. Springsteen kept in the blue notebook while working on Darkness on the Edge of Town, his first album in three years after the 1975 hit Born to Run.

“This whole thing became about making an album, the creative process,” Mr. Bett said.
The box set version of the notebook looks a lot like the real notebook kept by Mr. Springsteen. It includes his scribbly handwriting, and realistic touches like the brown stains and random rips found in the pages of the original.

Mr. Bett said that real fans of The Boss will notice certain details in Mr. Springsteen’s notes, like lyrics that were moved to other songs in their recorded versions or that are missing entirely. There are also voting tallies of which songs should be in the album, and lists Mr. Springsteen kept of which songs and artists he was listening to at the time (Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Elvis). These notes and lists are interspersed with photographs of Mr. Springsteen, chosen by Mr. Bett and Ms. Holme because they were either never used or seldom seen. Some of them are outtakes, and some of them are even stills from video footage, so that the images themselves did not even exist until the art directors at Columbia Records plucked them from old reels.

Pictured is a section of the Grammy-winning Bruce Springsteen box set The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story. On the left page is a list Mr. Springsteen kept while working on his 1978 album, of songs that he was listening to at the time. On the right page is a working version of the lyrics to Badlands. The pages are part of a facsimile of the original notebook Mr. Springsteen kept, designed by Dave Bett and Michelle Holme of Columbia Records.

“I sat and watched maybe two full days of video from those days,” Mr. Bett said, “and saying ‘oop, keep that frame, keep that frame.’”

The box set is something meant to be pored over by Mr. Springsteen’s biggest fans, to leaf through and learn from. Mr. Bett said that, in designing the box set, he asked himself, ‘what would a fan want to see?’

“The funny thing about doing Springsteen stuff is being from New Jersey,” said Mr. Bett, who is a native of the Red Bank, New Jersey area, near the heart of Mr. Springsteen’s original Jersey fan base. “I can remember hearing about him playing at a high school gym, and everybody wanted to see him.” Mr. Bett was in seventh grade at the time, and was told he was not old enough to go.

He said his mother played pinochle with the mother of a kid in Mr. Springsteen’s band at that time, a connection Mr. Bett told Mr. Springsteen about while working together.
Over the years, Mr. Bett said, he has worked on four or five Springsteen projects through Columbia, some with Ms. Holme.

So what does it mean to be a design director for a record company? “All of the artwork for Columbia’s artists — the packaging — goes through me in some form,” Mr. Bett said, whether he assigns the work to someone else or not.

“Say if Columbia has a project, and we need to get a box set design for it, I’ll either say, ‘I’ll do it,’ or I’ll assign it to another art director.”

Mr. Bett said that each project begins with some sort of direction from the artist.
“Usually it means you talk to the artist about the title, what they might want to see — either a picture of themselves, or a cool illustration, or maybe they have no idea at all — then you find a direction that fits the music. Then you have to find the right photographer, the right people….”

Mr. Bett said that his job involves a lot of coordinating between people. “It’s about building the right creative team and overseeing that.”

Mr. Bett was nominated for a Grammy once before, in the same category, for his work on Tori Amos’ 2003 Scarlet’s Walk.

He lives in Long Island, New York, with his wife, Kate Bernhard. Ms. Bernhard’s mother, Nan Murdoch, owned the cottage near Craftsbury Common that Mr. Bett and Ms. Bernhard visit. They have been coming to Craftsbury since 1981. “We feel like part of the community,” he said.

When they’re in Craftsbury, Mr. Bett said that he and his wife read a lot, and visit Caspian Lake in Greensboro and Bread and Puppet in Glover.

Mr. Bett also volunteers at the Craftsbury Public Library, where he’ll give his talk on July 11 at 7 p.m. He brought along his Grammy and an edition of the box set for the night.

contact Natalie Hormilla at natalie@bartonchronicle.com

Horse psychic visits Orleans County

Posted on July 5, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Amelia Kinkade in Newport. Photo by Tena Starr

by Tena Starr

NEWPORT — It was a sultry Monday afternoon and a thunderstorm was blowing in at Kory Scott’s Bluffside Farm on the Scott Farm Road here. But Amelia Kinkade had her mind on other things that afternoon, specifically Raine and Louis, two of the horses that board at the farm.

Ms. Kinkade claims to have the ability to communicate with animals, and to teach others how to do the same. She’s also an actress, a dancer, and the author of two books: Straight From the Horse’s Mouth: How to Talk to Animals and Get Answers and The Legacy of Miracles: A Celebrated Psychic Teaches You to Talk to Animals.

By Monday, she had been in Orleans County for several days at the invitation of Holly Richardson of Derby, who coordinated a two-day workshop for people interested in learning Ms. Kinkade’s methods and communicating with animals themselves. Ms. Kinkade also worked privately with local animal owners.

She was at Mr. Scott’s farm Monday to work with five horses and their owners. Her workshop students also attended the session.

Dawn Brainard of Holland owns Raine, a ten-year-old registered paint gelding. She led the horse to an outside ring where participants sat around in a semi-circle in the grass.

“We are going to ask him if he is in love with another horse,” Ms. Kinkade said.

But first she instructed the group on how to get in the proper frame of mind, the very key to “hearing” what an animal has to say.

“Your mind goes quiet,” she said. “Be aware of what parts of your body connect to gravity, connect to the Earth. Feel that anchor of light from your spinal column moving all the way up your body. There is no thought, no emotion. No tension.”

Speaking slowly, she urged the group to reach out to the universe in prayer. “Allow me to be your instrument if the idea of generating that feeling of love is foreign to you. Think about that animal you love.

“Now you are going to cease to function as a particle and function as a wave.

“Ask this horse, can you show me what you think, what you feel, what you want, what you need? There’s nothing in your mind except this horse. No past, no future, nothing but you and this horse. We are asking this horse, will you please be generous and be our teacher? Allow your mind to go blank and take the first picture you see.”

Ms. Kinkade, who is originally from Fort Worth, Texas, was not born clairvoyant. She says on her website that she did not develop the ability to communicate with animals until she was in her twenties. Since she herself learned from scratch, she says she’s able to pass on the skill to her students.

Her early career bears no resemblance to her current fame as an animal “psychic.” She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan with a degree in modern dance and went on to be a professional jazz dancer and choreographer, performing with Smoky Robinson, Ray Charles, the Four Tops, and other Motown stars in the TV series the Motown Review.

She has also worked as an actress, best known for playing the villain Angela Franklin in the horror movie series Night of the Demons.

In recent years, however, she has traveled around the world giving workshops and talks on how to communicate with animals. She often speaks in Europe and was invited, in 2002, to work with Queen Elizabeth’s household cavalry and Prince Charles’ hunting horses.

The most critical element of her practice, she said, is silence, which can lead to the kind of nonverbal communication that allows people to intuit the animal’s message.

“Learning to quiet your mind and enter the silence is the foundation of every skill I can present to you,” she says on her website. “Only an empty cup can be filled. When we think a thought, it’s our natural tendency to manufacture our next thought with no time in between. We rarely — if ever — listen. Only when our mind is at rest can we receive intuitive impressions from outside.”

On Monday, with the group’s minds presumably at rest, Ms. Kinkade asked several people what they were feeling from Raine.

“Raine, show them your favorite other horse,” Ms. Kinkade said.

“Imagine what would this other horse look like,” she said to the human participants. “I want to see details. What does he like about this horse and is there anything wrong with this horse?”

Some saw a red horse, some a black, and some a white horse. Several mentioned that the horse had a physical problem.

In the end, Ms. Kinkade said her reading was that Raine was anxious about his friend, whose owner was not as kind to him as she thought she was. “He’s worried about how his friend is treated,” she said. “He said this woman hurts his friend.”

The group went on to discuss Raine’s relationship with his owner. The general consensus was that she is sometimes distracted and inconsistent and perhaps did not trust Raine as much as she ought.

“I think he doesn’t like being told what to do and has a mind of his own,” one participant said. Some people laughed.

Ms. Kinkade, however, wasn’t amused.

“I don’t think that’s funny,” she said. “He is a sentient being. If he does what she wants, it’s the biggest compliment in the world. I like animals that have tempers, I like dangerous. I honor his wildness. He’s a man. He might be in a horse barn, but he’s still a man.”

Ms. Brainard wondered if she’s doing something that really bothers her horse.

“What would he like?” Ms. Kinkade said. “What would make this a happier horse and a happier relationship?”

Several people in the group urged Ms. Brainard to strive for consistency but also to relax and have more fun with her horse.

Later, Ms. Brainard said the group and Ms. Kinkade validated what she already thought — that with a busy life she is sometimes distracted and inconsistent with her horse, and she needs to take time, relax, and have fun with the paint gelding.

Louis, a huge, black Percheron-quarterhorse cross owned by Melissa Pettersson, was next to amble into the ring.

“Imagine if he could tell you about his life,” Ms. Kinkade said. “Imagine if he could talk to you about his life, his history. What does he love? What is he proud of? Does he have a job?”

One woman said she got the strong feeling that Louis felt underestimated.

“Thank you,” Ms. Kinkade said. She said “underestimated” was the first word that came to her from Louis, who was telling her that he’d had one hell of a career and might be getting on in years but isn’t ready to be a grandpa. “He said they don’t understand how incredible I am. He claims he was a winner. He’s a role model and a therapist for the other horses. He’s an extraordinary person, an amazing man.

“You go way back,” Ms. Kinkade said to Ms. Pettersson. “You love each other very much. You even look alike.”

Ms. Pettersson said she got Louis when he was six months old. He’s now ten and has spent all his life with her.

“He’s a happy guy, this guy,” Ms. Kinkade said. “He’s just bored. He wants to take you for a crazy ride in the woods.”

Ms. Kinkade says on her website that her true passion is helping animal rescue organizations in Africa create safe havens for white lions, elephants, cheetah, great white sharks, and penguins. She also troubleshoots in sanctuaries that rescue tigers, primates, elephants and other breeds of exotic animals in Thailand and around the world.

She makes no bones about being an advocate for animal rights, and says animals experience the full spectrum of human emotion, perhaps to an even greater extent than people do. “In fact, it has been my experience that their scope is sometimes larger than that of humans… in terms of their spontaneity, loyalty, ferocity, grace, and unprecedented powers of forgiveness….

“What a travesty that we in the twenty-first century have yet to recognize our fellow sentient beings for what they are — thinking, feeling, rational beings whose sanity, sovereignty, and safety is every bit as valuable as ours.”

Ms. Richardson said that people from several states as well as Canada came to Derby to attend Ms. Kinkade’s workshop.

contact Tena Starr at tena@bartonchronicle.com