An essay on longevity: New magazine features old trees

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Posted on January 11, 2013 by BethanyMDunbar

copyright the Chronicle 12-26-2012

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Julia Shipley of Craftsbury for a new magazine based in Hardwick called Taproot. The magazine comes out four times a year and each issue is based on a theme. Its motto is “living fully, digging deeper.” The magazine seeks to publish high quality writing, photos and art from local and national writers on topics related to what would have been called, a generation or two ago, the back-to-the-land movement — an effort to get back to basics in matters of food, home life, work, and more. “We didn’t see media that addressed this nascent movement in any meaningful way,” said publisher Jason Miller. The magazine has no advertising, except it ran an insert for natural toys in one edition. Its goal is to pay for itself by subscriptions, which are $30 a year. In the most recent issue, the theme was wood. Cover art was by Maine artist Jennifer Judd-McGee. Single copies are available at the Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick. For more information, see the magazine’s website: www.taprootmag.com. For more information about Julia Shipley, take a look at www.thenewsfrompoems.com where she writes about poetry, and www.writingonthefarm.com

by Julia Shipley

On the upper west side of Manhattan, on the first floor of the Museum of Natural History, sequestered in a dim corner is a slice of a mammoth sequoia, God’s torso, I think as I gawk at this hunk which germinated from an infinitesimal seed in the year 550 AD, the year St. David converted Wales to Christianity. The year it was cut down, 1891, was the year the zipper was invented. None of us staring at this shard of a sequoia had even been born yet.

When it was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893, according to the museum’s docent, people were incredulous that a tree could ever grow so big, and disgruntled that it had been severed for their viewing pleasure.

The cross section — displayed on end showing the growth rings, all 1,342 of them, one for each year of the tree’s life — is broad as a Cadillac Coup de Ville and tall as a UPS truck. Were it to somehow flop over and appear as it had in the forest the day it was finally cut from the stump, its dimensions would match that of our town’s stout gazebo, a lone edifice on the Common where small orchestras play in the summer. In my mind’s eye I grow the gazebo into a sequoia tree that looms hundreds of feet over the town ground.…

Stuart LaPoint, the owner of a landscaping business and assistant tree warden for the town of Craftsbury, gets around — meaning he drives the back roads a lot, keeping an eye out for something big. In 2010 he put together a group of photographs showing 12 of Craftsbury’s most majestic specimens. After some pestering (I’d rib him when I saw him at the general store, “Hey, I’d love to go check out those trees.”) he agreed to let me come along.

It helps I happen to have two of the biggest trees in town, or rather, they have me, whichever way you look at it: they are the oldest things I live with — these huge red oaks, with limbs as tall and thick as regular trees. In the fall when they’re tawny, the one on the left has goldish leaves, and the one on the right’s are more russet. As I spend the weekends of October and November raking up their endless bequest, I ponder how old they are.…

So one day in March, when Stuart calls up and asks, “How’s tomorrow?” I tell him it’s perfect. We are going to visit the biggest living trees he knows about within five miles of the town gazebo. He’s called all the landowners; we’re cleared to visit.

As he pulls in the driveway the next morning, my big oaks throw zebra stripe shadows all over his pickup truck. As we gaze 70 feet up into the trees’ canopy, I tell Stuart how recently a tree- size limb wrenched loose and how I hired a guy named Karl Nitch to help take it down and how Karl used tree spikes to climb 60 feet up and fell the monstrous limb. The whole time I worried what I might have to say to Karl’s surviving wife, but in the end, he returned to the ground of his own accord and I had enough bucked up chunks to heat the house for half the winter, and to give to my neighbor Dave Brown, who churned out eight oak bowls on his lathe. As my Dad and I split firewood together, we marveled at the pretty pink flesh of the oak — oh, so this is why they call it “Red.” And when folks come over for dinner, I’m sure to tell them how these bowls grew in the yard.

The second stop on our tree tour is just up the road, by the Whitney Brook, and there it is: strong, straight and tall, growing impossibly from the bank of the brook. Standing beside it you can see the Atwoods’ silo and the power pole running current up to the barn.

Stuart announces, “It’s a hoyt spruce.”

A hoyt spruce?

“Yeah.”

“Hoyt?”

“Hoit.”

Oh, you mean ‘white’?

“Yup, and 32 feet high if I had to guess. You’ll look hard to find one bigger. Should live another 30 years. I just happened to see it from the road one day as I was going by.”

And then, quick as a wink, we are back in the car headed further up the Creek Road toward Albany, to get a look at Bruce Butterfield’s hop hornbeam (also known as ironwood) off near a clearing, and then his American Linden (also known as basswood).

Standing beneath the Hornbeam I am blasé — its stature seems unremarkable, neither broad nor tall, but as I learn later reading Donald Peattie’s A Natural History Of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, my nonplus is dipped in ignorance, as Peattie writes, “Only occasionally does this tree grow 30 feet high,” and here Stuart has located this “occasion” right in our neighborhood. Meanwhile, he defends the linden growing nearby, stating, “I don’t think that it’ll be a wow-er, but it’s pretty big — look on the trunk, it’s got some girth, close to 42 inches I’d guess.”

On with the tour, we buzz back toward town, merely driving by the jumbo paper birch on the roadside near Ron Geoffroy’s East Hill Auto and the quaking aspen in the bank by the Midis 20 feet from the intersection of South Albany and Ketchum Hill Road.

So often I simply see “trees” and not individual species, as in a stadium I simply see “people,” a human blur. When I moved to Craftbury eight years ago, the town was full of blurry people, but in the intervening years, or in arboreal terms: eight growth rings, I’ve learned names and personalities, so it is fitting that each tree Stuart introduces is linked by its name to a neighbor, as I start to see the forest through the trees….

“In the early days of pioneering in the northeast, the “land-lookers” brought back tales of a tree of gigantic height, which grew in the wildest and remotest recesses of the great North Woods”— Donald Peattie A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America.

The last time Jim Moffatt saw the yellow birch was about a year ago. These last few years he’s gotten behind on some of his winter woods-work — and counting backward, he’s had five hip operations; then there was a winter with so much snow he couldn’t get into the woods, so he took his skidder apart to make some adjustments and put it back together; and the winter before that he spent going down to Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington to take his wife, Joan, to her appointments.

As we climb into his Ford pickup, Mr. Moffatt tells me he was born in the house. The land came into the Moffatt family when Jim’s father bought the estate from Daniel Dustan, a descendant of the founding families of Craftsbury. And Mr. Dustan had purchased the parcel containing the Yellow Birch upon his return to Vermont after a stint in the South at outset of the Civil War. In a diary kept by Mr. Dustan, he describes building a sugarhouse. Back then, the yellow birch must have been surrounded by giant sugar maples. To form into a soaring tree, straight and tall, the yellow birch had to bide its time in the shade of older trees, and then shoot up, “released,” as the others died off.

We are driving north through Moffatt’s Tree Farm. Acres of Christmas trees grow on both sides of the road. What began as a sideline enterprise to dairy farming when Jim’s father started cutting wild balsams in old pastures has turned into a full-time cultivated tree farm operation under Jim’s management. Now Jim’s son Steve is responsible for 100,000 trees on parcels of land spread out over five towns.

We travel down a side road and pull over as Jim hops out to open the gate across his right of way, then climbs back in. Entering the leaf-shingled shelter of the woods, we lurch along a cobble-cluttered skidder road. Jim recollects, “The first time I looked at the yellow birch was in the 1960s after I bought the parcel from my father…. I thought there was some lumber in it, but it was too much, more than my equipment could handle to bring it down.”

Though Jim’s father never mentioned it at the time, he too knew about the yellow birch. Eventually Jim learned his father had seen it years before and also thought it large, too large to take down with the equipment they had.

Back in 1972, a man named Jeff Freeman, then a professor at Castleton State College, began making a list of Vermont’s largest trees. In 2001, Loona Brogan of Plainfield, Vermont, founded the Vermont Tree Society, a group and website celebrating Vermont’s largest trees. And now the most up-to-date list, with more than 110 species and varieties, is maintained by Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. Jim Moffatt’s tree is not on this list. There is an even bigger yellow birch in Victory. But Jim’s may be the oldest.

“It must be three hundred years old. I’m 75 and it is relatively unchanged in my lifetime.”

We get out of the truck and walk a ways up the road, and then he stops and says, “There.” Though it sits back amid the woods of other sturdy trees, I am absolutely certain which tree he means.

It’s like coming across an I-beam in a box of tooth picks: it rises with authority; and it has a demeanor, emanating a sort of warmth and feeling, the way a person does. It seems far more sentient than anything else around it and indeed, it has convinced three centuries of appraising men that it’s not meant to be felled by saw.

When Jim leans against the yellow birch’s broad trunk for a photo, he does in a companionable way, and lets the trunk take some of his weight, an intimate gesture, more personal than simply standing beside it; and he favors the right side of the trunk, as opposed to the center, as if to leave room for where Joan would have stood, or still is standing, in some way.

Peattie concludes his chapter: “Frequently when a yellow birch comes to the end of its life span, it stands a long time, though decay is going on swiftly under its bark.”

Jim puts this truth another way, “You can see the inside’s rotten — one day the winds are going to bring it down.”

As we back away I ask, “Does it have a name?” — as the cypress was called the Senator or the chunk in the Museum of Natural History was from a tree named Mark Twain.

“No, it’s just the yellow birch.” After a pause he adds, “But if it did, I guess it would be ‘Joan,’ after my wife, as it represents so much about our our lives together.”

Then, once more, as has happened for hundreds of years, we turn away to leave, and the yellow birch remains.

I like to imagine one day, Steve’s boys, Jim’s grandsons, will grow up and bring their children here.

On page 36 of the 2011 town report, the Craftsbury Municipal Forest Committee notes that Stuart LaPoint received a grant from the Preservation Trust of Vermont to plant 12 trees. He planted one in the village and then tucked in 11 others on the Common, surrounding the lone gazebo and the hidden-in-plain-sight ancient maple. Stuart planted red maple, river birch, flowering crab, blue beech, hop hornbeam, Princeton elm, Japanese tree lilac and serviceberry. How about that? The man cruising the roads looking for the biggest and oldest being in the woods, is also cruising through town making sure the youngest have a chance to grow into something substantial, maybe even large, maybe even old, and hopefully recognized years, decades, maybe even centuries from now.

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.

“Spaceman” Santa helps promote Toys for Tots

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Posted on January 2, 2013 by BethanyMDunbar

Craftsbury General Store owner Emily Maclure, left, and Michelle Guenard, creator of Michelle’s Spicy Kimchee, pose on Santa’s lap. Santa was being played by Red Sox baseball player Bill Lee. Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar

Craftsbury General Store owner Emily Maclure, left, and Michelle Guenard, creator of Michelle’s Spicy Kimchi, pose on Santa’s lap. Santa was being played by Red Sox baseball player Bill Lee. Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar

by Bethany M. Dunbar

copyright the Chronicle 1-2-2013

CRAFTSBURY — The Toys for Tots box was looking a little sad. Craftsbury General Store owner Emily Maclure was searching for a way to encourage customers to bring in a toy to donate to the project, which provides new toys for children who might not have a lot under the tree.

She got to talking about the situation with Bill Lee, the retired Red Sox baseball player who lives nearby. Next thing you know, Mr. Lee was signed up to play Santa in order to get some more attention to the Toys for Tots program.

It was an opportunity for Mr. Lee to promote his new brand of wine, called Spaceman. Add live music, provided by Mavis MacNeil and Andrew Koehler, and an event was born.

Mavis MacNeil and Andrew Koehler provided music for the event.

Spaceman was Mr. Lee’s nickname when he was on the Red Sox, and he had a label created that looks like an old-fashioned baseball card. Mr. Lee grew up in the Napa Valley in California but has roots in Vermont as well. He feels strongly that wines made in California are better because the state gets more sun. He said maybe Vermont wines made with white grapes will be all right.

Spaceman wine is also a fund-raiser. The label promises that a portion of the profits from the wine will go to the Red Sox Foundation, which supports a Red Sox Scholars program and an inner city baseball program.

Mr. Lee calls his wine a “petit cera cera.”

He describes it, on the label, as such:

“Shanghaied for fifty years on the east coast by the game of baseball, Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee — sixth generation Californian and prodigal son has returned to his roots by making a monsterous red wine, like that which has run through his ancestors veins and vines since the 1800s.

“This wine will knock your Sox off.”

On the day of the promotion, December 22, Mr. Lee gave people tastes of his wine. He came equipped with autographed baseball bats as well.

Michelle Guenard, right, pretends to attack Bill Lee with a bottle of the new Spaceman wine he has created, called Spaceman, while Ms. Maclure pretends to attack him with an autographed baseball bat.

Michelle Guenard, creator of Michelle’s Spicy Kimchi, came by with a Red Sox jersey, and before long, she and Ms. Maclure were posing for photos on Santa’s lap and pretending to attack him with wine bottles and an autographed bat.

Ms. Maclure added another incentive for people to donate: Anyone who brought in a toy would be entered to win one pizza a month for a year.

It worked.

As the musicians were packing up on the afternoon of December 22, Ms. Maclure said the event had helped fill up the Toys for Tots box.

contact Bethany M. Dunbar at bethany@bartonchronicle.com

In Memoriam: Maureen O’Donnell July 6, 1952 – December 11, 2012

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Posted on December 28, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Maureen O’Donnell at home in Albany, with her 1959 Melody Maker guitar. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

Iconic and ironic, O’Donnell releases Rogue Element

This article first appeared in the Chronicle in 2009. It is republished here in her memory.

by Bethany M. Dunbar

ALBANY — In these days of excitement about renewable energy, it just might be the perfect moment for Maureen O’Donnell to release her new compact disc.

Years ago, Ms. O’Donnell was a local celebrity as part of a band called the BTUs. The BTUs rocked out at the Valley House in Orleans and other local venues, back in the days when dancing was the preferred weekend aerobic exercise in the Kingdom.

“We were ironic as hell and iconic,” says Ms. O’Donnell, when the timing is pointed out to her.

Ms. O’Donnell has been making music by singing and with a guitar and harmonica and other instruments since she was a small child. She remembers thinking that someday she would get rich and have a place in the country. It’s all true except for the rich part (so far).

This is the introduction from Ms. O’Donnell’s notes to be included with her new compact disc, Rogue Element.

“Listening to another ‘final mix’ thru JBL’s in a 20’ X 24’ room with a large window view of beautiful meadows, free of all traces of human endeavor. A moose gazing in at me, so close I could count the flies on her magnificent mouth. Fifty or so wild turkeys strutting in a line through the yard; crows cackling, calling; hawk soaring, swooping, elegant, effortless in the totality of its being, nothing more, nothing less.”

The cover photo is Ms. O’Donnell practicing — not with her guitar. She is shown in a black T-shirt and cap, ear and eye protection in place, holding — with what appears to be complete comfort — a rather large rifle. The photo was taken by David Bradshaw, a shooting friend.

Ms. O’Donnell’s album could be described as rock or folk, alternative, or something like that. She has written all the songs except for “Cover Me” by Bruce Springsteen, which was recorded live with the Reused Blues Band at Burlington City Hall.

Ms. O’Donnell’s voice is, on some tracks, Bonnie Raitt-esque. It’s full of soul and life, and life experience. It’s less frightening and more forgiving than the cover art.

She produced the CD herself. Its sound is homegrown and authentic. On the intro, she puts it this way:

“This slim collection represents my first solo process relying almost entirely upon my own skills (or lack thereof), as writer, musician, engineer, producer, singer, objective witness and executioner…

“Honest and raw as November, sonic imperfection becomes part of the charm of this offering, no opting for technical preciousness.”

At age four, Ms. O’Donnell first saw a Telecaster guitar and remembers it in perfect detail.

“It was kind of a blondish vanilla with a white maple neck, and I was just gone. I didn’t want anything else ever,” she said.

One issue right away when she was growing up was that girls did back up. Ms. O’Donnell had talent, but people kept telling her “chicks didn’t play lead.”

They wanted to put her in tall, white go-go boots and a short skirt with a tambourine. She said she thought she would prefer her Carhartts.

“When I saw the Beatles, I wanted to be one. I didn’t want to marry one,” she said.

The Beatles were a huge influence on her because it seemed possible for music to be a career.

“All of a sudden you knew you didn’t have to go to home ec. You knew you didn’t have to be Betty Crocker or a Barbie Doll.”

Ms. O’Donnell grew up in Brookfield, Connecticut, which she said was — in those days — a lot like Vermont is now.

“It was a great place to be a kid,” she said.

“The Moody Blues were my parents,” she said. It might be a slight exaggeration, but her actual parents were dysfunctional and abusive. Her mother was married six times, her father was married four times, and they married each other twice. Ms. O’Donnell went to ten high schools due to her parents’ moving around. Her father was a Teamster. She got into drugs at age 15.

But music kept her interest.

“When I was ten I joined the drum corps,” she said. She learned drumming from a man named Earl Sturtz, who was drum champion 36 years in a row. He had an “impeccable sense of meter,” and she soaked it up.

She dropped out of school but was reading voraciously. She would go to college campuses and argue Nietzsche and Kierkegaard with the students and professors. She tended bar in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall and met a band there called Spiral Country because all the songs were written in a spiral notebook. She joined them, they got on the radio and got fan mail from all over — including truck drivers in Colorado.

She came to Vermont with a former lover who was going to Goddard. Ms. O’Donnell graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and theater from Goddard.

“She and I had done a lot of feminist theater,” Ms. O’Donnell said, including at Yale Drama School. She found more music in Vermont.

“Denny Clifford taught me the fundamentals of how to do the dobro,” she said. And then there were the BTUs.

She recently went back to Ohio and got to play with old friends and some up-and-coming musicians, including one woman she had mentored out there years ago. The shows were a blast — 1,000-seat venues, some with a packed house.

“I always knew I was meant to be on the big stage,” he said. “I made good use of it. I didn’t just stand there.”

Music has kept her going in hard times and good times.

“It’s just really nice to feel that you have something in your life that gives you a sense of self-respect and dignity, that you have something to offer the world,” she said.

“The tunes on this album kind of picked me,” she said. “I was really shocked at the serendipity.”

She said she used to “push the river” a lot because of her own aggression and compulsion, but these days she’s trying, with some success, to let the music just come through.

“Now I’ve learned to empty yourself out and get out of your own way,” she said.

Ms. O’Donnell has a web site at http://InHouseMediaWorks.com, and by April 15 Rogue Element will be available for sale through CDBaby.com. Anyone interested can also reach her by snail mail (1535 Creek Road, Irasburg, Vermont 05845) or e-mail (dragon52@localnet.com).

“The response to the CD has been amazing, considering so far it’s only been word of mouth,” she said.

“I wanted to just thank everyone for remembering.”

contact Bethany M. Dunbar at bethany@bartonchronicle.com

An obituary of Maureen O’Donnell appears here: /bartonchronicle.com/category/obituaries/

In memoriam: Henry Labrecque

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Posted on December 10, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Jeannette and Henry Labrecque at home in September of 2011. Photo by Chris Braithwaite

Editor’s note: Henry Labrecque died on December 7, 2012. In his memory, we republish here an interview Chris Braithwaite did with Mr. Labreque that was first published in the Chronicle in the fall of 2011.

by Chris Braithwaite

copyright the Chronicle, September 28, 2011.

BARTON — Nothing could seem more normal on a sunny afternoon in late September than to see Henry and Jeannette Labrecque harvesting a hay crop from a field beside the Cook Road.

The couple might have been seen in such a field more than half a century ago, working with equipment that was a little smaller, a little slower. But then, as now, you would expect to see Mrs. Labrecque behind the wheel of the tractor.

“One thing I always liked was driving tractor,” she said in a recent interview.

Henry Labrecque might have been seen there 70 years ago, a strapping young teenager, perhaps driving the team of horses, perhaps building the load of loose hay on a wagon.

He has lived on the farm for all but the first four of his 83 years, and worked on it almost that long.

He has a crystal clear memory of his eighth birthday present, a privilege bestowed by his father:

“I could start milking cows by hand. I’ll never forget that. I thought I was a man.”

One of his earliest memories of life on the farm, which sits on a deceptively sharp curve on the road to Willoughby Lake, is less positive.

The farmhouse had a bad foundation, he recalls, and its movement had opened cracks in the roof. A few months after the family moved there in October 1932, young Henry woke in his upstairs bedroom to find “a couple of inches of snow on the sheets.”

That morning, he recalled with a smile, “it didn’t take too long to get dressed.”

Mr. Labrecque’s French-Canadian family had arrived at their ramshackle farmhouse in northern Vermont by an indirect route, one that reflected the times they coped with.

Henry Labrecque. Photo by Chris Braithwaite

His mother, Marie Anne, had moved from Montreal to Lawrence, Massachusetts, to join hundreds of young women in the textile mills. His father, Jeremie, had moved nearby from his family’s Quebec farm to work at Fafnir Bearing. They met at the wedding of his neighbor and one of her friends, and married in 1927.

Then the Depression hit.

“In 1931 he got laid off and moved up here, to the Kittridge farm,” Mr. Labrecque said.

That place, now fallen into a ruin, had just been remodeled by the father of Tony Pomerleau, the Burlington developer who is playing a key role in Newport’s redevelopment.

“But he lost it,” Mr. Labrecque said of his father and the Kittridge farm. “Then he moved here, to the old Pete Damon place.”

Of Mr. Damon’s reason for leaving, Mr. Labrecque said, “Things went wrong with him, too.”

Things were going wrong for a lot of farmers in the early ’30s. Mrs. Labrecque recalls the bankers of the day with no hint of affection in her voice.

“If they missed a payment by one day, they were evicted,” she said of farmers like Pete Damon.

Yet the bankers gave Jeremie Labrecque a bit of a break.

“The deal was he could stay here, and if he could make a go of it, they’d sell it to him,” Mr. Labrecque said. “In 1934 they did.”

The farm, then 120 acres, sold for “right around $3,500.”

His father started out with about a dozen cows, milking them by hand.

There was no electricity, Mr. Labrecque recalls. “We got it the day before Christmas, 1942, which was a Saturday.”

He has sharp memories of the electricians who busied themselves in the house that day, particularly of one universally known as Old Tink Prescott. “He’d stick his finger in his mouth, then stick it in the socket and say ‘Yep, there’s electricity there.’”

The herd grew steadily over the next decade, as Henry Labrecque grew up. “When we were married in 1954 there were 25, maybe nearer 30,” Mr. Labrecque said.

“I grew up in Newport Center, a whole 23 miles from here,” Mrs. Labrecque said.

“I knew the road to Newport Center,” her husband said.

He said that with a smile that seemed to recall a farmer in his mid-twenties wooing the girl who would be his wife for (so far) 57 years and with whom he would raise seven children.

It was important to both parents, as their family grew, that they retain the French language.

All seven of their children can speak French, and at least one grown son, Richard, still slips into that language when he talks to his parents.

Jeannette Labrecque keeps a close eye on the baler from the driver’s seat as son Richard Labrecque keeps a close eye on his mother. Photo by Chris Braithwaite

Mrs. Labrecque is a plain-spoken woman, and her voice still conveys some of the fury she felt when a teacher sent a daughter home with the advice that she should be speaking English in their home.

“There was no English spoken in this house,” she said. “How else would they keep their French?”

“When I started school I knew one word in English,” Henry Labrecque said. “That was ‘No.’”

At his first day of school he couldn’t so much as ask to go to the bathroom. Finally recognizing his discomfort, the teacher found a bilingual classmate, a girl who figured out the problem and led young Henry to the outhouse.

Then she translated the teacher’s instructions on the universal code, using his fingers to indicate number one and number two.

But he can still hear the laugher that filled the one-room Devereaux schoolhouse when he raised his middle finger to his teacher, and she calmly bent it down and raised his index finger in its place.

“My mother never could talk English,” Mr. Labrecque said. “Dad could, after a while. I picked up the English language, but I kept the French.”

Speaking the French language in northern Vermont had its price, Mr. Labrecque said.

“French-speaking people were looked down on. If there was a good job, the English speaker got it. French people, they were farmers. They worked the land.”

On her drive to school, he recalled, “the teacher would pick up some of the Fisk kids that were neighbors, but I had to walk.”

Yet his bilingual ability proved to be critical to the work he did to support the farm. He’d drive north into Quebec to buy hay, Christmas trees, and brush for his wreath-making business.

Son Richard has taken that business over, and finds his French essential to negotiations with farmers on the other side of the border.

His business, and his ability to chat with his sources, has made Richard an expert on the state of the Quebec dairy industry. His key finding: Quebec’s supply management system, based on quotas, supports a thriving business while Vermont dairying continues to decline.

“When I got out of high school there were 17 farms between Barton and Willoughby Lake,” Henry Labrecque said. “Now there aren’t any.” He and Jeannette sold their cows in 1994.

Mr. Labrecque didn’t want to sell them, his wife recalled. “I said, ‘If you don’t want to sell the cows, you can do the work yourself.’ That changed his mind.”

While he has passed the hay and wreath business on to Richard, Henry continues to haul loads of gravel out of a pit on the farm, even as he recovers from major heart surgery in June.

Talk of the gravel pit brought back other memories of the Depression and the WPA, the Works Progress Administration created by President Franklin Roosevelt to put unemployed men back to work.

“In the winter of 1934-’35 they graveled the road to the Barton Village line — in the winter — with horses. The WPA had men in the pit shoveling gravel all winter.”

His father worked too, hauling gravel. “I think that first year it was $2.25 a day, the next year $2.50. That was for Dad, the horses and the wagon. That’s what kept the place from going under.”

He remembers touching hands with Roosevelt in 1934, when the President was campaigning in Newport for another term.

Another childhood memory involves the skin of a calf and a cattle dealer who, to this day, Mr. Labrecque is reluctant to name.

“It was during haying in July. I was seven. It would have been 1935. Dad told me, ‘If you skin that calf you can have the money.’”

He remembers running out to meet the cattle dealer as his rounds took him past the farm; remembers the dealer standing on the running board of his truck, his gold teeth, and his ability to speak French.

“All I could talk was French.”

Young Henry offered up the hide, and the dealer agreed to buy it.

“He picked through the change in his hand and gave me a Canadian dime.”

What Henry didn’t know was that the dime was worthless in Vermont.

“I went down to Medie Massey’s store for a nickel ice cream.” The store was at the corner of Main Street and Duck Pond Road in Barton.

“He asked me if I had any money. Boy, did I! I had a dime! Well, he didn’t give me no ice cream.”

Henry got the same reception at Ralph Moore’s store downtown, and from Mr. Boisvert on Upper Main Street.

“I went into Wallace Foss’ store. He asked if I had any money. I showed him my dime. He said ‘I’ll give you an ice cream and you keep your dime.’ I ended up giving it to the church.”

That dealer “was a tight-fisted son of a gun,” Mr. Labrecque said. Years later, at a dance in Glover, the dealer had a chance to ask the farmer why he never sold him any cattle.

“So I told him,” Mr. Labrecque said. “He denied it, but it was the truth.”

Asked which era of farming he most enjoyed, Mr. Labrecque was quick to respond.

“When the whole family was here. All the kids were here. We had problems, but they were enjoyable years.”

“It was a good life, but it was seven days a week,” he said.

“Sometimes,” Mrs. Labrecque added, “it felt like eight.”

To read an obituary of Henry Labrecque, please see the obituary pages for December 12, 2012.

Shelton invents Task One: iPhone case multitool

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Posted on November 28, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Addison Shelton shows off his invention, Task One. Photo courtesy of Addison Shelton

by Bethany M. Dunbar

copyright the Chronicle 11-28-2012

ATLANTA, Georgia — Addison Shelton, who grew up in Glover, has invented a case for iPhones that has several slim tools stashed inside it. He’s looking for people who want to buy one ahead of time in order to get the funding to manufacture the product.

Called Task One, the case includes a small serrated knife, pliers, a wire cutter and stripper, screwdrivers, Allen wrenches, a bottle opener and more. The knife can be removed for when a person gets on an airplane.

“Task One is a sleek and sexy multi-tool case for your iPhone,” says the product’s Facebook page, called TaskLab.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Mr. Shelton said he had the idea because he loves tools and multi-tools like Swiss Army knives.

“I’m a mechanical engineer. I’m a tool guy. I like tools,” he said. Despite that, he finds he doesn’t carry those multi-tools around in his pockets because they’re too bulky.

“They turn out to be not that useful to me,” he said.

Task One has 16 tools inside it and is no thicker than a regular iPhone case.

The one thing a lot of people do carry, though, is a cell phone. Mr. Shelton started thinking, what if the two could be combined? He searched the Internet and didn’t find that anyone had already invented such a thing. So about a year ago, he set about making a prototype.

His blog, which can be seen at thetasklab.com, tells some of the story of working out bugs in the original prototype.

Task One has 16 tools and is no thicker than an ordinary phone case. Part of the design process has included making sure no one would break the phone when using it to cut a steak or firewood. The tools are designed to break before the phone would be hurt, and Mr. Shelton promises to replace tools that break, for a very small charge.

He has not patented the tool yet, but he has written a provisional patent. The process of obtaining a patent is three or four years long, he said, and it starts with making the product public. The inventor has a year from that time to submit the provisional patent application.

Mr. Shelton has until December 26 to raise $45,000 through the crowd-sourcing website

www.indiegogo.com/taskone. He launched the idea a week ago, November 21, and so far he has raised $15,000.

If he gets fully funded, he will owe 550 people a Task One iPhone case, and he figures that $45,000 would be enough to be able to buy the manufacturing tools he would need. The cases can be pre-purchased for $75 to $90 each.

“I’m pretty excited about getting this to manufacturing,” he said. “I think a lot of people would find it pretty useful.”

If this works out, he might also create a version of the case for Android type cell phones next. If the website funding program does not raise $45,000 by December 26, he could either drop the idea or look for a different way to fund the product’s manufacture, such as a conventional bank loan.

Mr. Shelton is the son of Betsy Allen and Bucky Shelton. He graduated from Stanford in 2005 with a degree in mechanical engineering.

His regular job is with an Atlanta, Georgia, company that he and some of his friends from college started. The company is researching improvements in lithium batteries.

“Mostly we are trying to increase the capacity,” he said.

In his spare time, he decided to invent the Task One.

contact Bethany M. Dunbar at bethany@bartonchronicle

Glover EMTs help New Jersey victims of Sandy

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Posted on November 19, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

The ruins of a house stand in stark contrast to the devastation that swept away entire communities along the Jersey Shore. “Scenes like that went on for miles and miles and miles,” Mr. Gibson said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Photo Courtesy of Chance Griffin

by Richard Creaser

copyright the Chronicle 11-14-2012

GLOVER — It was not the sort of homecoming that Dennis Gibson would have chosen as he returned to New Jersey last week, but the importance of that trip outweighed any concerns he may have had.

Mr. Gibson, along with fellow Glover Ambulance squad member Chance Griffin, traveled to the Jersey Shore to provide aid to communities battered by the passage of Hurricane Sandy. The two emergency medical technicians (EMTs) were part of the seven-ambulance Vermont Strike Team that deployed on the evening of November 6 to some of the worst damaged New Jersey communities.

The primary role of the squad was to provide relief to emergency crews that had been operating flat-out since Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 30. The professionalism of their fellow EMTs left a powerful impression on Mr. Griffin.

“They acted as if nothing had happened,” Mr. Griffin told the Chronicle on Tuesday. “They went in and did their jobs as if their houses weren’t destroyed. Some of them were living in the fire station because they didn’t have a home to go back to.”

Even amidst the destruction the Glover EMTs were shown every conceivable courtesy and kindness. The level of appreciation extended by fellow emergency service providers and patients alike had a profound effect on both men.

“It’s not every day that you have people come up to you and say thank you for what you’re doing,” Mr. Gibson said. “Everyone there was just so grateful and appreciative of us.”

The Glover squad traveled to New Jersey and arrived first at the Meadowlands complex. The Meadowlands served as the main staging area for arriving emergency service crews. From there crews were assigned to various communities that required their assistance. During the five-day mission the Glover squad operated out of Keansburg and Atlantic Highlands, both located along the famed Jersey Shore.

The extent of the devastation that greeted them was both shocking and saddening. During their stay, the men toured affected areas including a brief visit to nearby Seabright.

“It’s just amazing the amount of damage a 12-hour storm can do,” Mr. Gibson said. “It will take Seabright probably five to ten years to get back to what it was. It was just incredible.”

Though fears of looting immediately followed the passage of Hurricane Sandy, the establishment of law and order in its wake helped prevent a repeat of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Gibson said. There was a strong police presence in every community. Deployments of National Guardsmen added to the sense of security in the affected areas.

“When we pulled up to the school where we were staying there were National Guardsmen and an armored car parked in the driveway,” Mr. Gibson said. “They wanted to know who you were and what you were doing there before they let anyone through. They learned from Katrina.”

The Meadowlands MetLife Stadium in New Jersey became the staging ground for ambulance services that rushed to respond to the disaster that followed Hurricane Sandy. Photo courtesy of EMS Task Force State of New Jersey

During their deployment, the Glover crew handled the kinds of 911 calls they might expect to handle back home in Glover. The major difference lay in the sheer volume of calls.

“One town we went into was maybe a square mile and that volunteer department handles 2,600 calls a year,” Mr. Griffin said.

“With Glover you handle 300 to 400 calls and you don’t see too many members riding on all of them,” Mr. Gibson said. “A crew we met out of Baltimore said they handled 8,000 calls a year. You just don’t see that kind of volume here.”

What took some getting used to was navigating traffic as the crew transported patients to and from the hospital. Though the physical distances were not as great as those the crew is used to, the time necessary to travel those distances remained comparable, Mr. Griffin said.

“The amount of juking and jiving you need to do getting around in traffic was unlike anything we do back here,” Mr. Gibson said. “The worse thing we have to do here is get through that one light at Sias Avenue in Newport.”

Another big difference was how the visiting ambulance teams communicated with one another. Because there were so many ambulances from so many squads, reconfiguring radios to ensure continued coverage was impractical. Instead, units relied on cell phones and texting to communicate with one another and their respective headquarters.

“Chance really stepped up on this because I’m a bit of an old-timer when it comes to this kind of stuff,” Mr. Gibson said. “I had never sent a single text before April of this year and now I’ve sent hundreds. I really learned a new appreciation for how well that can work in an emergency situation.”

Both men also spoke of the overwhelming feeling of pride when the departing ambulance squads formed up to leave the Jersey Shore. The departing ambulances were accompanied by dozens of emergency service vehicles from multiple departments with their lights flashing.

“It’s not something you’ll ever forget,” Mr. Griffin said.

“Everywhere we went people came out to stand by the road and wave and holler their thanks,” Mr. Gibson said. “You don’t normally get that kind of response for doing the job you’ve been trained to do.”

Chance Griffin (left) and Dennis Gibson of Glover Ambulance provided relief for New Jersey EMTs, many of whom have worked non-stop since the hurricane struck on October 30. Photo Courtesy of Chance Griffin

What made the entire trip possible was the strong sense of cooperation and fellowship both within the Glover Ambulance Squad and between the state of Vermont and the state of New Jersey. The first request for assistance came out of New Jersey at 11 a.m. on November 6 requesting up to 25 ambulances and crews. By 5 p.m. New Jersey had adjusted the request to include as many ambulances as could be ready to roll as quickly as possible, Glover Ambulance Chief Adam Heuslein said.

“By 6 o’clock we had the bus packed and rolling,” Mr. Heuslein said. “It was the first big test for our new ambulance.”

Mr. Heuslein extended a warm thanks to Northeast Kingdom Balsam and Windshield World for permitting Mr. Gibson and Mr. Griffin time off to deploy to the Jersey Shore. The cooperation of employers is a critical component to the smooth operation of a volunteer service like Glover Ambulance, he said.

“I would also like to thank the other members of Glover Ambulance for stepping up and covering the shifts for Chance and Dennis allowing them to go,” Mr. Heuslein said. “It was because of their efforts that we were able to maintain coverage and let Chance and Dennis go down to New Jersey. At no point was the town of Glover without ambulance coverage. It really was a team effort.”

The dedication of their fellow EMTs and the bonds Mr. Gibson and Mr. Griffin formed with them has left the men with an urge to provide as much help as they can. As a result the Glover Ambulance Squad is exploring the possibility of hosting a fund-raising effort to benefit the EMTs and communities hit by the storm.

“A lot of these guys and their families lost everything,” Mr. Heuslein said. “So we want to try and help them out even as they help the other people in their community.”

The experience that the two men are bringing home is an invaluable one for both the squad and Vermont’s emergency responders, Mr. Heuslein said. It was the first real test of Vermont’s Strike Team system developed by the Vermont Department of Health and Vermont Emergency Management.

“For something that sat on a back shelf since Katrina and with changes in administration in between, the system worked really well,” Mr. Heuslein said. “This experience makes the Strike Team system better and our own squad better for being a part of it.”

contact Richard Creaser at nek_scribbler@hotmail.com

Broe – Lantagne family is built on reindeer games

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Posted on November 6, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

At present Prancer is the only reindeer in the entire state of Vermont. He makes his residence with Pauline Broe at the Vermont Reindeer Farm in West Charleston. Prancer, a female, is currently awaiting a reunion with Comet II, though to the untrained eye he will bear a stunning resemblance to the original Comet.

by Richard Creaser

copyright the Chronicle 10-24-12

WEST CHARLESTON — Even before Pauline Broe picked up her bullhorn to address the crowd on Sunday it was apparent that this wasn’t your typical family gathering. With sun and rain appearing in equal measure, members of Ms. Broe’s extended family enjoyed brunch under the tent, stood around the fire pit or roamed the grounds of the Vermont Reindeer Farm.

The gathering is an annual event for Ms. Broe’s family and, in particular, her branch of the Westmore Lantagnes. All seven Lantagne siblings still reside within an hour’s drive of the town where they grew up.

But it is far more than a gathering of the clan. To Ms. Broe it is an opportunity to remember who she is, where she came from, and exactly what kind of legacy she wants to leave behind for the next generation.

“We were probably the poorest family in Westmore when we were kids,” Ms. Broe said. “Someone else was always giving us clothes and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. There wasn’t any expectation that we were going to go to college. Our parents expected that we would finish high school.”

Being on the receiving end of charity left a deep impression on the Lantagne children. It instilled in them a recognition of the power of one person to make a tremendous difference in the life of another. It fostered in them a strong sense of family and a willingness to pool their resources for the benefit of all.

The annual family gathering turned into a fund-raising effort to help support members of the family, Ms. Broe said. Whether by explicit donation or through silent auctions and walkathons, the family gathered money to form a Lantagne family scholarship fund.

Remembering the generosity of the community they received as children growing up in Westmore, the Lantagne siblings have turned their annual gathering into an opportunity to raise money for a family scholarship fund, to support relatives dealing with illness as well as providing money for the American Cancer Society. They are, back row from left to right: Richard Lantagne, John Lantagne and Bernard Lantagne. In the front row from left to right are Avis Brosseau, Joyce Ofsuryk, Pauline Broe and Joan Peters. “We’re just looking for a way to give back to a community that gave so much to us,” Ms. Broe said.

“Our expectation is that if a child in this family wants to go to college, they will go to college,” Ms. Broe said. “Those of us in a position to help will help. That’s just the way we are.”

The gathering has also helped provide funds for ailing family members including, most recently, a sister-in-law and a nephew who battled cancer. Their struggle highlighted the prevalence of cancer in the community and inspired the family to also donate a portion of their fund raising money to support cancer charities.

All this focus on good deeds would seem to suggest that a Lantagne family gathering is a dry, joyless affair. Nothing could be further from the truth. Adjacent to the food tent an inflatable bounce house keeps the younger ones dry and entertained. As Ms. Broe speaks with the Chronicle she is constantly jostled by a kaleidoscope of animals that includes three goats, a donkey and a pig who thinks he’s a dog.

A more varied menagerie of animals probably hasn’t existed outside a zoo or a pretty famous ark. And that brings us back around to the name of Ms. Broe’s farm — Vermont Reindeer Farm. To the average American, reindeer are something you see in nature shows, on Christmas cards or in claymation television specials. Visitors to Ms. Broe’s farm, however, get to lay their eyes — and sometimes hands — on the real McCoy.

Comet and Prancer are the star attractions at the Broe farm, though Comet is, at present, off in New York State awaiting permission to enter Vermont. In truth, he would be Comet II, but in order to avoid giving children nightmares about the mortality of Santa’s faithful sled team Ms. Broe is content to present the illusion that the original Comet is simply away on business.

“This is the only reindeer farm in all of Vermont,” Ms. Broe said. “So how did it all get started? It’s not like we sat around dreaming of reindeer.”

Like most of the stories Ms. Broe told on Sunday afternoon, this one found its origins somewhere else. The land on which we stood has been in John Broe Senior’s family stretching back five generations.

On a different day and at a different hour a pile of bones might prove intimidating to a group of youngsters. Not so this collection of “dinosaur” bones located along the walking trail behind Pauline Broe’s West Charleston home. The intrepid scouts who led the Chronicle to the find at the Vermont Reindeer Farm are, from left to right, Madison McRae, Connor Broe, Gwen Lantagne and Tyler Choquette. Photos by Richard Creaser

Before that parcel became a farm it had played host to a modest but lovingly crafted camp. The Broe’s decided to build a more permanent dwelling using wood harvested from the land. Naturally, it seemed a shame to tear down a perfectly good cabin to make room for the house, so they just conjoined the two in a style that is both rustic and more than a little bit storybook.

“Some people have a back lawn,” Ms. Broe said, looking out the north window. “We have a back forest.”

She neglected to mention that the forest was a strange, magical place inhabited by brightly colored ceramic frogs, fairies and bridges complete with shaggy-headed trolls. Did we neglect to mention the dinosaur bones?

“I really like coming out here and walking on the trail,” niece Gwen Lantagne said. “I like seeing the frogs, the little bridges and the dinosaur bones.”

“I think they’re just cow bones,” Tyler Choquette said with almost convincing certainty.

The fact that the younger generations take happily to field and forest, eagerly sharing the magic of that place with a complete stranger, proves that what the Broe’s have built lives up to their ideal. This is a place where memories are made.

“When they grow up I want them to be able to remember Aunt Pauline’s and all the wonderful animals and the things to see and do,” Ms. Broe said. “I want them to remember where they came from and how that made them who they are.”

Which somehow brings us back around to the reindeer. The farm grew as a place where rescued animals could find respite and a loving home. It started with a pony and soon expanded to the various furry and feathered critters that snorted, brayed, bleated and squawked around the pastures and pens.

“One day I was looking at Country Woman magazine and saw a picture of a blond woman in a red outfit with a reindeer,” Ms. Broe recalls. “I thought, ‘That could be me!’”

Transforming that vision from idea to reality proved to be complicated. The threat of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among captive herds of deer severely limits the transport of animals like reindeer. To import the animals to Vermont, the Broe’s first had to find a clean herd from a state certified to ship animals to this state.

Tedious though the process may have been, Ms. Broe expressed no qualms about following that reindeer dream. The reindeer have proven popular with folks booking Christmas celebrations, as well as with the dozens of schoolchildren that have visited her farm.

Sharing her animals and her property with family and friends and schoolchildren is something that Ms. Broe treasures immensely.

“I love the opportunity to make kids happy,” Ms. Broe said. “When you see a child that has had problems bonding with other people and you see them hugging an animal, that’s amazing. People can connect to animals in a way they might never connect to other people, so giving them that opportunity means a lot to me.”

If one were to ask what precisely a farm with two reindeer, a bunch of goats, a confused pig, a donkey and a collection of chickens and ponies produces the simple answer is probably the right one — fond memories of a special place from their childhood.

contact Richard Creaser at nek_scribbler@hotmail.com

Albany scarecrows support fire department coin drop

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Posted on October 17, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Firefighter scarecrows in Albany were created by Karen and Brian Chaffee to support a fund-raiser, a coin drop, which will be repeated on October 20 and 21, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Photos by Chris Braithwaite

by Chris Braithwaite

ALBANY — A remarkable array of this town’s departed residents made a mysterious reappearance on Main Street Saturday morning.

Beginning just after 6 a.m., they emerged one by one to take their places and provide support for a coin drop operated by the Albany Fire Department.

In front of the church Rodney and Marie Chaffee rode off to their wedding on a bicycle built for two. Firefighters took their place in front of the firehouse. And Irene and Winnie Brow, who ran a potato operation in town for many years, disported in matching tubs just up the street.

They were among 66 scarecrows erected that morning by Karen and Brian Chaffee, who now live in Barton but grew up in Albany. Brian is the son of Rodney and Marie, the couple on the bicycle. Karen is the daughter of Marcel and Pauline Locke, who overlook the village from Albany Center.

The scarecrows were making a return appearance from 2009, when the Chaffees put them up on the road between Orleans and Barton.

They took them down, however, after they became the victim of vandals.

Late Saturday morning, as they were putting up the last of their scarecrows, the Chaffees said they planned to take them all down that night, for fear of vandals.

But while they lasted, the visitors brightened a cool autumn day in the village they had all shared. The scarecrow will make another appearance this weekend, October 20 and 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. when another coin drop is underway.

Contact Chris Braithwaite at chris@bartonchronicle.com

“Couples that bathe together stay together!!” says the sign, and Irene and Winnie Brow are there to prove it.

In Orleans: Ethan Allen celebrates its eightieth year

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Posted on October 3, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. chairman, president and CEO Farooq Kathwari (right) visits with company employee Chelsea Bingham in Orleans. Photo by Richard Creaser

ORLEANS — As Ethan Allen Manufacturing Inc. entered its eightieth year in business, company Chairman, President and CEO Farooq Kathwari felt it only appropriate to celebrate the occasion in Vermont, where it all began. Mr. Kathwari’s first stop was at the Beecher Falls facility, followed by an afternoon reception and tour of the Orleans plant on Tuesday.

“To be around for 80 years, either by plan or by accident, you have to reinvent yourself,” Mr. Kathwari said. “One challenge was to figure out how to maintain manufacturing in the United States in the face of the pressure of globalization and commoditization.”

Ethan Allen has weathered two great economic calamities: the Great depression of the 1930s followed by the Great Recession of 2007. It has done so by rising to the challenge and adjusting to changing market conditions, Mr. Kathwari said. The most recent challenge involved rethinking the model used in manufacturing in America.

Where once assembly lines churned out hundreds of identical pieces, one after the other, a visit to the workshop floor today reveals dozens of different models and styles of furniture in various stages of assembly. The change reflects a recognition that American-produced goods cannot compete with the low-cost mass manufacturing capabilities of Southeast Asia.

To meet that challenge, Ethan Allen adopted a custom order model. Rather than mass producing items in anticipation of sales, the plants would be retooled to respond to specific orders from customers.

“Each piece that comes off the line is already sold,” said Don Garrett, vice-president of manufacturing. “When we make each piece we know the name of the person it is going to. That creates a powerful connection between us and the consumer, because it isn’t going to go into a warehouse on top of a pile of stuff.”

Switching to a custom model realizes certain efficiencies that enhance the company’s bottom line, Orleans plant controller Chet Greenwood said. No longer is the company paying to build and then warehouse items in the hopes of selling them.

“Everything is built to order and then shipped to the end consumer,” Mr. Greenwood said. “Inventory that sits in a warehouse is dead inventory, and dead inventory hurts your bottom line.”

Today’s Ethan Allen is supported by the three pillars of investment in infrastructure, the production of high quality goods and a high quality of leadership, Mr. Kathwari said. All three elements have proven critical in ensuring the company’s success through difficult times.

The key to preserving manufacturing at Ethan Allen’s American facilities has centered on creating custom pieces as they are ordered. “Every piece you see today has already been sold,” said Don Garret, Ethan Allen’s vice-president of manufacturing. Photo by Richard Creaser

At the core of those three elements are the people behind the products, Mr. Kathwari said. Maintaining a good relationship with the workforce involves applying a long view of the company’s future.

Ten to 15 years earlier the quality of production had slipped at the Orleans plant, Mr. Kathwari told an assembly of the factory’s 360 workers on Tuesday afternoon. Uncertainty about the future of the plant was doubtless a contributing factor, he said.

“If people are worried about the plant closing it affects you,” Mr. Kathwari said. “If affects you mentally and it affects you financially. I understand that.”

Since the change to custom order production, the quality of work coming out of Orleans is the best on the East Coast. That is a reflection of confidence in the company and the direction it is heading, Mr. Kathwari said.

“Every time I come here I see people I have seen and known for many, many years,” Mr. Kathwari told the Chronicle. “No company can afford to lose that level of experience and knowledge. Longevity is fostered by treating them with the dignity they deserve whether it is through better working conditions or a decent wage. It isn’t rocket science.”

Operating within the constraints of the American corporate climate is not an easy task, Mr. Kathwari said. Corporate taxes are among the highest in the world, while labor and energy costs are equally troublesome. Overcoming these barriers is something that Ethan Allen has sought to do internally.

Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc., president and CEO Farooq Kathwari displays a copy of the book We the People of Ethan Allen that Ethan Allen retailers use as a sales tool to promote the company’s wares. To Mr. Kathwari’s left is Mike Worth, Northeast Regional Operations Manager for Ethan Allen. Photo by Richard Creaser

“If we are to wait on the state or the country to come to our aid we will be waiting a long time,” Mr. Kathwari said. “So we do what we must to ensure that we are as competitive as we can be.”

Ethan Allen’s Vermont operations are almost entirely oil free, Mr. Kathwari said. A cogeneration facility at the Beecher Falls plant provides electricity and heat that supplies the majority of the needs of that plant. Wood waste generated both on site and trucked in from Beecher Falls provides heat for the Orleans facility.

“Two years ago we used 250,000 gallons of oil to heat this plant,” Mr. Greenwood said. “Last year it was none. We won’t always have that mild a winter, but we are taking steps to keep the costs we can control under control.”

Today nearly 70 percent of Ethan Allen’s products are manufactured in the United States. Though outsourcing remains a prickly issue, it is a necessary evil to balance the profitability of the company, Mr. Kathwari told the Orleans plant workers.

“If it wasn’t for that plant in Mexico or that plant in Honduras, Orleans would be a very different place today,” Mr. Kathwari said. “We would have no profits if we manufactured everything in the United States.”

One promising trend is that, even as Ethan Allen has withdrawn its presence from Asia, it is generating business in the Far East. The company now has 73 retailers in China and furniture manufactured here in Orleans is being shipped to consumers in China, Mr. Kathwari said.

“Who would have imagined that five years ago?” Mr. Kathwari asked.

The margins on American manufactured furniture remain slim, but improved efficiencies have helped to increase profitability at the Orleans plant by 30 to 40 percent over the last two years. Switching from two shifts to one has helped increase that profitability, Mike Worth said. He is the regional operations manager for the Orleans and Beecher Falls facilities.

“We got rid of the second shift because of all the overhead costs that go along with it,” Mr. Worth said. ”We’re doing more volume now on one shift than we used to do on two.”

The investment in specialized computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines has allowed the plant to quickly adapt from one product line to the next. While it is still necessary to switch out the cutting tools and drills to match each piece, the process has inherent efficiencies and greater precision.

“We used those lean years to invest in new technology to help us get to that next level,” Mr. Worth said.

Several area legislators took part in the tour of the factory on Tuesday. Representatives Duncan Kilmartin, Bob Lewis, Mike Marcotte and Vicki Strong joined Senator Bobby Starr in commending Ethan Allen for its continued commitment to providing employment for their constituents.

“I know you provide a lot of good jobs for a lot of good people,” Mr. Starr told Mr. Kathwari. “I know that if we work together we can keep this place going for another eighty years.”

contact Richard Creaser at nek_scribbler@hotmail.com

Wildlife management area created as working dairy farm is saved

Posted on September 19, 2012 by BethanyMDunbar

Bill and Ursula Johnson sold their landmark dairy farm in Canaan, Vermont, creating a wildlife area at the same time. Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

by Bethany M. Dunbar

CANAAN — A landmark working dairy farm here has been sold to a young farm family while a new wildlife area was created, protecting six miles of frontage on the Connecticut River and ensuring public access for fishermen, campers, and bird watchers.

It was a complicated deal and one lots of people wanted to celebrate at the Bill and Ursula Johnson farm on Friday, August 3. About 70 people attended, including the heads of several state agencies, plus local legislators — Senator Bob Starr and Representative Bob Lewis.

Secretary Deb Markowitz of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources said the Johnsons’ sense of civic duty in wanting to make the whole thing happen was laudable.

“This is just one more example of what it means to be a Vermonter,” she said.

Secretary Chuck Ross of the Agency of Agriculture said when he was approached about this idea that it was so clearly a wonderful project that it was a “no-brainer.”

Vermont Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Pat Berry said the project is unusual because it brings together three of Vermont’s top values: working lands, conservation, and public access.

“Look around you. This is a big deal,” he said.

Bob Klein of the Nature Conservancy agreed. “What makes Vermont so special is the integration of those things,” he said. “Every project is a manifestation of a collection of values. Conservation isn’t something somebody else does.”

The deal took more than two years to put together. The Johnsons sold 849 acres, of which 583 is being kept in farming, with conservation easements. The remaining 266 is being made into a state-owned Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The property and easements cost $1.45-million, according to Tracy Zschau, regional director of the Vermont Land Trust.

She said the first step was to buy the conservation easement, which was about $450,000 of the total cost.

The first main funding source was the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s Upper Connecticut River Mitigation and Enhancement Fund. Representatives of the fund put up the money for the easement plus the additional $1-million to buy the property, with the understanding that VLT would find others to help share the cost.

In the long run, Ms. Zschau said, other funding sources agreed to help, and the New Hampshire group ended up paying under $500,000.

Funds came in from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service, Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.

The Nelson family bought the working dairy farm.

Cy and Andrea Nelson bought the 583-acre working farm, with easements in place, for $965,000. The Nelsons will also have a free lease on 50 acres of land within the state-owned WMA in exchange for allowing public access to the river.

Mr. Nelson said he was glad to have the opportunity. It was not a simple decision though.

“It was a big commitment financially and for our family in general,” he said. Cy is the son of Doug Nelson, who was also on hand for the celebration.

“I’ve worked for him on the family farm since I was a kid,” he said. Now he and his wife, Andrea, have a two-year-old daughter of their own, named Sloan. They are expecting again soon.

Mr. Nelson said the Johnsons helped make the transition very smooth. The Nelsons are employing the same five workers the Johnsons did, which they said has made a big difference. Some of the employees live in housing on the farm.

Cy and Andrea Nelsons have 215 milking cows in Canaan and 250 in Coventry. He said the river-bottom rock-free land on the Johnson farm is ideal for farming, and the corn is doing extremely well this year.

“I think we’re as good as anything,” he said.

“The dairy industry is a pretty unique industry. Our profits are always fluctuating.”

Bill and Ursula Johnson have retired as farmers, but Mr. Johnson still serves the area in the state House of Representatives. Mr. Johnson represents the towns of Brighton, Canaan, East Haven, Lemington, Newark, Norton, and Westmore. Ursula Johnson worked in the field of conservation.

Over and over again in the course of the day, officials remarked on what a wonderful job the couple had done keeping the land in great shape. Where many farmers would have drained a lot of the wetlands in order to make more pasture or hay land, the Johnsons kept a lot of it intact, and as a result there is a tremendous abundance and variety of birds and wildlife. On Friday, people saw half a dozen great blue herons, a northern harrier (marsh hawk), and several other species of birds.

After the speeches, people were invited to take tours of the farm or two parts of the WMA. One was north of the main barn, and the other was south into part of Lemington.

“There’s not a written plan for this area yet,” said Fritz Gerhardt of Beck Pond LLC, a conservation scientist who led the Lemington tour and pointed out some highlights in the farm land and wetlands. The WMA plans for the whole state will be discussed at a public hearing in Montpelier on August 21. People who have ideas for what should be done with the property will have a chance to give their opinions.

Joan Allen of The Nature Conservancy, Ms. Zschau and Jane Lazorchak of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department were credited as being the three masterminds behind the complicated project.

“This is exemplary by national standards,” said David Govatski, president of Friends of Pondicherry, based in New Hampshire. Mr. Govatski did a bird survey for the land trust that showed 89 species, some of them rare. He said the wetlands are home to hundreds of wood ducks, American bitterns, and purple sandpipers to name a few. Of the species found in the survey, 30 species of special concern to conservationists were noted.

contact Bethany M. Dunbar at bethany@bartonchronicle.com