Keeping Vermont Weird

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That pretty much says it all. We spotted this bumper sticker last week at a NOFA (Northeast Organic Farm Association of VT) farm event down on West Shore Road in South Hero.

This is Florence

Sweet, isn't she?

Florence is a mule. She is the offspring of a donkey dad and a horse mom. (Think Mayor Bloomberg and Giselle Bundchen.) If she was the offspring of a donkey mom and a horse dad she would be a hinny.  Mules, we were informed, are not so much stubborn as smart, much smarter than horses. If you put a mule and a horse on the edge of a cliff and beat each with a stick, the horse would soon jump off the cliff. You would become totally exhausted from beating the mule and it would still be standing there.

Grumpy Maggie

And this little animal is also a mule. Her name is Grumpy Maggie. She weighs about 400 pounds. Mules, with exceptionally rare exceptions, are infertile. The horse has 64 chromosomes, the donkey 62 and the mule 63. So the chromosomes have a hard time pairing up. But the female mule does have a regular estrus cycle. Lest this seem a particularly cruel joke played upon mulekind by a misogynistic,  patriarchical Grand Designer, well, it is. All of the downside and none of the up. As an added insult, mules are particularly grumpy during those times when they are not in the fertile phase of their cycle --which is most of the time. More info than you needed?

Blame the Rescue Mule lady from Green Mountain Mules here on Grand Isle. That's what she does; rescues mules. And she is hardly alone up here. New England and particularly Vermont is the place to come if you are gay and want to get married or if you and your mule or donkey want to part company.
There are lots of refuges for rejected mules and donkeys. If you are all save-the-whales, dolphins, greyhounds and tuna'd out you might want to try saving donkeys or mules.  Two of the places you might want to bookmark are Save Your Ass Rescue and Ass-Pirin Acres.

And there a lot of mules that need rescuing.  The Veteran's Administration has a backlog of more than half a million claims of disability stemming from the Afghan/Iraq wars. The thousands of mules that were shipped over there and did their patriotic duty have yet to file a disability claim. These mules have all but been abandoned-- save for a few fine, if a little weird, people here in Vermont.

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A Tennessee Fainting Goat

At least some Vermonters are not easily intimidated be they pitted against giant multinational corporations, the Federal government or even a force as elemental and irreversible as Evolution: natural selection, adaptation, survival-of-the-fittest and all that. Take the little fellow above as a case in point. He is a Tennessee Fainting Goat. He and the rest of his breed are considered threatened. At one point their numbers dwindled to less than 10,000 total. And I suppose in the grand scheme of things these adorable little critters should be gone.

Sitting down they look normal enough

They suffer from a hereditary genetic disorder called myotonia congenita. When the animal panics, its legs stiffen and it falls over on its side. It is not in pain nor does it actually loose consciousness or the ability to breath. It is not a nervous disorder but a muscular one. Some people find it amusing to watch. This genetic defect would definitely seem to be, over time, a liability for a prey animal. In fact, shepherds used to seed their sheep flocks with sacrificial fainting goats. When wolves descended on the sheep they would run away while the goats would "faint".  An easy meal for the wolves. I suppose that's one way to make yourself useful, even valuable. The goats' myotonia also makes them fence-challenged, easier to keep in smaller spaces, catch and hold for care and grooming and--- harvesting for meat (chevon). Evolution works in mysterious ways especially when Vermonters get involved. Up here in Vermont some farmers fall all over these little goats.

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Billboard advertising and commercial road signs are verboten in Vermont. Tasteful and uniform small signs by the side of the road direct travelers to businesses and attractions. In 2000 Take Back Vermont signs began to show up on barns, silos, in yards, on farm stands and on other private buildings  throughout the state. One couple visiting Vermont bought some maple syrup from a farmstand and thanked the farmer for putting up the sign to remind them to take back some of the unique Vermont products  Another visitor from Louisiana went so far as to write then Gov. Howard Dean to commend him for the very effective promotional campaign for Vermont tourism and products. She asked how he got so many farmers and businesses to put up the signs. How did he do it?

He signed into law a bill passed by the Democrat state legislature legalizing Civil Unions in Vermont. Vermont was the first state to pass such a law. The Take Back Vermont campaign was in reaction to that law. The law remained in effect,. Gov. Dean was re-elected but the legislature changed hands in the next election.

You can't make this stuff up.

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F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Question: When was the last time you found yourself bitterly pitted against your neighbor over an issue involving your state's Air National Guard?  Do you even know if your state has an Air National Guard?

Well, up here in VT everyone, save for some recently transplanted flatlanders, knows the Vermont Air National Guard, The Green Mountain Boys.  What the Crimson Tide is to Alabama, the Green Mountain Boys (GMB) are to Vermont. They predate the founding of Vermont and are inextricably woven into the historical, economic and social fabric of the state. Formed as a militia in1760, they defended the early land grants from New York and Canadian incursions. The GMB fought in The French and Indian War and The Revolutionary War under Ethan Allen. They helped defeat General Burgoyne  at Bennington which swayed the French to support the American Revolution.

After the Revolutionary War, Vermont, never a colony, decided to go its own way and declared itself a sovereign republic. It remained such from 1783 to 1791. During the Republic the GMB protected Vermont from incursions by New York and Massachusetts, both of whom claimed land in the state. In 1791 Vermont became the 14th state.

The GMB have taken part in every overseas conflict the US has ever engaged in. No dinky armories for the GMB. They have an entire fort in Essex just east of Burlington and, of course, the fighter squadron which currently flies the F-16 at Burlington International Airport. The Vermont Army and Air National Guard units number less than 3000 personnel.

The GMB and Vermont Flag

Through political machinations still murky, the Pentagon announced their intention to "bed down" a squadron of brand new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters with the Green Mountain Boys at Burlington Airport. The decision rent the greater Burlington area along just about every possible fissure: racial, ethnic, economic, social, environmental and political.  About the only thing those for and against the deployment almost agree upon is the fact that the airplane is loud. It is very loud, 4 times louder than the F16, the FAA-recommends-that-you-vacate-your-home-loud, injurious to your health and hearing loud.

Burlington Airport, Winooski to the North and South Burlington to the South and East

Houses will have to be vacated and torn down under the takeoff and landing flight paths. Families will have to be relocated. Property values in communities bordering the flight paths will drop significantly.  Stress and hormone levels in children under the flight paths will be significantly affected. Exposure to sound levels comparable to the F-35 are injurious to hearing,  especially children's hearing. These facts are from The Pentagon's own Environmental Impact Statement. Almost 8,000 people will be affected.

Oh, and the areas most adversely effected are the cities of South Burlington and Winooski, the two most racially, ethnically and economically diverse places in all of Vermont. I know, you're shocked.
At the latest Burlington City Council meeting:

Basing proponent Stephen Gould countered that the local presence of America’s newest fighter would rightly honor the Air Guard.

That honor would come at the expense of, literally, “those who have the least amount of options and other resources” to press their claims, said Susie Taylor.

If the F-35 is kept out, the Air Force will take their F-16s and go home.  Even if you win, you lose.

We'll keep you posted.

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North Street is where it's at in Burlington

After you have your spine adjusted, you head adjusted and learned that you are not about to meet a tall, dark stranger don't forget to go across the street for a Sibec Sizzler. Then stop at Brixton Halal, the Himalayan Market or the African grocery for those can't live withouts.

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Big news out of St. Alban's:

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Walmart now hiring in St. Albans

Two hundred needed to staff largest Vt. store

 Yep, the fourth and largest Walmart in Vermont is set to open. While noteworthy in and of itself, this particular opening may wel lset a new corporate, American and World Record. 

Building a Walmart in St. Alban's Town was first proposed in 1991. Walmart's developer began the formal approval in 1994. The decisions denying Walmart's applications were twice appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court. Finally last year, after a 19 year process Walmart received approval to begin construction. And now, this month, 20 years later, the Walmart will open.

Walmart supporters in the cornfield 

Walmart's ordeal was the result of Act 250, a far-sighted land use and development regulating mechanism enacted in 1970. Back in the day there were no environmental and darn little zoning or land use controls.  President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System brought I-89 and I-91 to Vermont.

I-89 and I-91 opened up Vermont for "Resettlement"

Some heads-up Vermonters recognized that these two roads would open up the treasure of Vermont to 

an onslaught of flat landers from the south. Rather than mandating zoning or land use or leaving it up to individual villages, towns and cities to enact growth planning, the Act made it simple or so it seemed. Any proposed development over 10 acres in the "countryside", over 1 acre in a town or city without zoning, comprising 10 housing units or lots, or to be built above an elevation of 2500 feet (think ski) would have to be approved by one of nine District Commissions. The Act set out 10 criteria which the commissions should consider in making their decisions.

While more than half of the criteria have to do with  impacts on water and soil or infrastructure, the rest have to to do with those very subjective "quality of life" judgements: congestion, aesthetics, "unreasonable" burdens on schools or municipalities, etc.. Being put out of business by Walmart is certainly a burden on a local business. But as one woman put it:

You can’t even buy a pair of underwear here. Well, you can, but it’ll cost you $30,.... Everybody wants a Wal-Mart.

Perhaps not everyone but the man in the photo above is holding a newspaper showing the 14,000 signatures on a Pro-Walmart petition. That's a sizable number of people considering St. Alban's Town where the Walmart is located has a population of just under 7000 and St. Alban's City has a population of just over 7500.

Walmart persevered. The lady can buy her panties. Whole Foods, on the other hand, folded their tent and went back to Texas after a mere two years of hassling to try to get a store in South Burlington. Trader Joe's is just weird enough to past muster up here. Their store will open in South Burlington by the end of the year.

Rendering of  the first Trader Joe's in Vermont