How does fracking work? Click on the diagram above for a visual explainer.

Want a piece of neighborly advice?

Keep the frack out.

That’s the word from Québecois residents who support Vermont’s possible three-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing — a controversial method of drilling for natural gas more colloquially known as fracking. ... Read more

If you live along Lake Champlain, you’ve heard the periodic warnings to stay out of the water. In a state known for its eco-consciousness, how did our largest lake get so polluted? And what can we do?... Read more

1/29/12: The Young Street Rink in Colchester is a backyard ice rink that has been maintained by the Young Street community for about a decade. Over the years this patch of ice has become the neighborhood hot spot.  Eva visits on a Sunday night for a bonfire, burgers and a tour.
Music: Kevin MacLeod, "Porch Swing Days"

1/21/12: Eva heads to an icy corn field in Lyndonville for NEK Snowmobile Drag Racing. The event is hosted by Lyndon Sno Cruisers, a non-profit organization who use the money they raise to groom their trails. There will be 3 more races in February.
Music: Waylon Speed, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, "Riding For The Brand"

Over the years, climate change has gone by many names: weather disruption, climate destabilization, global warming — or global weirding — even “atmospheric cancer.” In Vermont, we might dub it the death of winter. Call it what you will, this inconvenient truth is undeniable and cannot be ignored — even if you still believe that human behavior is not the culprit. ... Read more

1/14/12: Eva visits Waitsfield for the 9th annual Mountaintop Film Festival at the Big Picture Theater.
Sam Mayfield is raising funds for her film "Wisconsin Rising" here.

In a recent New Yorker piece about a boutique coffee grower in El Salvador, the writer cites a single source for his recap of the global history of coffee: a book written by Mark Pendergrast of Colchester.

Pendergrast specializes in thoroughly researched histories of public-health topics with international reach — from Coca-Cola to, in his 2010 book, the globe-trotting Epidemic Intelligence Service.... Read more

It was a December morning, all blue sky, bright sun and shining white snow, the kind of brilliant, dry-cold morning that tempts some of us to quit our jobs, abandon our possessions and trot out unencumbered into the world. I wasn’t completely unencumbered myself, but I was “going light,” and certainly feeling my freedom as I approached the mailbox at the end of my driveway in Ferrisburgh and walked on past.... Read more

1/2/12: The Renewal Chorus kicked off their 6th annual winter tour on a good note at the Church of Our Saviour in Killington on Monday night.

Without question, Tropical Storm Irene was the story of 2011, almost eclipsing memory of any events that occurred during the eight preceding months of the year. Individual artists, as well as arts organizations and venues, were among those affected by the flooding that Irene wrought. All have their stories, which we’re likely to be retelling and updating for months and years to come. In this, the last issue of Seven Days in 2011, we check in with two of them.

*****... Read more