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Stories about Vermont places you love, told by the people who live here. Visit www.happyvermont.com.
Episodes
Wednesday Jan 24, 2024
Wednesday Jan 24, 2024
Jane Dorney of Richmond is a geographer who helps people connect to the Vermont landscape and understand how it evolved.
She approaches her work with the geographer’s question: Why are things where they are?
In this episode of Happy Vermont, host Erica Houskeeper talks to Jane about settlement patterns, maps, town centers, villages, covered bridges and old mill sites.
Thursday Jan 11, 2024
Thursday Jan 11, 2024
Mount Tom in Woodstock isn’t a particularly tall mountain. But its environmental legacy, easy public access and central place in the community are monumental.
Mount Tom is where you’ll find miles of trails, beautiful views, a shining mountain top star, and the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, the only national park in Vermont. It’s also where the American environmental movement was essentially born 160 years ago.
Host Erica Houskeeper talks with resident Randy Richardson about the mountain's legacy, hiking trails, and special place in the community. She also checks in with resident Norm Frates about replacing the wooden Woodstock Star on the south peak of Mount Tom, which was installed after World War II.
For more Vermont stories, event listings and podcast episodes, visit www.happyvermont.com.
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
John Lent, of Waltham, started volunteering many years ago at the Vergennes Community Foodshelf with his late wife, Mary Ann. She was the driving force behind the couple’s volunteering efforts in the community. After Mary Ann died in 2020, John decided to keep volunteering in her honor.
John is not only an avid volunteer, he’s also an accomplished marathon runner. He’s completed marathons in all 50 states, all Canadian provinces, and all seven continents.
In this episode of Happy Vermont, John shares what motivates him to volunteer and why getting out of your comfort zone is essential.
Learn more:
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Alicia Taylor and Joanna Alpizar met at a pop-up roller-skating event in Burlington. The two BIPOC women became fast friends and are now on a mission to create a public, welcoming, year-round space for roller-skating in the Burlington, Vermont area.
In this podcast episode of Happy Vermont, Alicia and Joanna talk about the joy of roller-skating, the history of roller-skating, and creating a welcoming skating space for the community.
Read the story here on HappyVermont.com.
Support Happy Vermont on Patreon.
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Jamie Franklin opened an exhibition at Bennington Museum earlier this year called Haunted Vermont, which explores disappearances in the Bennington Triangle and the work of mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Jackson lived in North Bennington and some of her work was inspired by the strange happenings in this area of Southern Vermont.
This episode of Happy Vermont highlights disappearances in Glastenbury, witches in Pownal, and vampires in Manchester and Shirley Jackson's work.
https://happyvermont.com/2023/10/11/bennington-triangle-happy-vermont-podcast/
Friday Sep 29, 2023
Friday Sep 29, 2023
Every fall, John Anderson of Dummerston and a group of volunteers monitor birds that are migrating south for the season.
For decades, these volunteers, known as the Putney Mountain Hawk Watchers, have recorded the number and kinds of hawks they see and report the information to Hawk Migration of North America, which maintains an online hawk count database.
Established in 1974, Putney Mountain Hawk Watch is the only autumn raptor watch in Vermont that is monitored daily between August and November.
In this episode of Happy Vermont, John talks about hawk watching, what it brings to his life, and the time he saw more 6,000 birds fly over Putney Mountain in one day.
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
If you’ve ever been to Shelburne Orchards, chances are you’ve seen or been lucky enough to meet owner Nick Cowles. Nick has spent most of his life at the orchard, which his father purchased in the 1950s. Nick loved growing up there, and when you visit, it’s easy to see why.
Host Erica Houskeeper met up with Nick to talk about apples, brandy, and how running the orchard changed his life for the better.
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
The summer she turned seven years old, Charity Clark's first outing on Vermont's Long Trail was at Little Rock Pond in Mount Tabor. Years later, she completed the 272-mile footpath across the Green Mountains, the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States.
Today, Charity is Vermont's first female attorney general. Even with a busy schedule in Vermont’s highest law enforcement office, she spends as much time as she can outside—hiking, skiing or exploring the woods.
In this episode of Happy Vermont, Charity shares her love for hiking and the outdoors and why Vermont is her forever home.
Read the story: https://happyvermont.com/2023/08/29/hiking-the-long-trail-charity-clark-podcast/
Tuesday Aug 15, 2023
Tuesday Aug 15, 2023
Happy Vermont podcast host Erica Houskeeper shares ways to explore Vermont this summer and fall. She also weighs in on why we can't take Vermont communities for granted.
Wednesday Jun 28, 2023
Wednesday Jun 28, 2023
Terri Armata of Bennington is one of Vermont’s most dedicated butterfly watchers. A retired hospital employee, Terri has seen about 100 species in Vermont, nearly every kind ever found in the state.
Host Erica Houskeeper met with Terri at Merck Forest in Rupert to talk about good places to find butterflies, her passion for butterfly watching, and Vermont's second Butterfly Atlas Project survey.
patreon.com/happyvermontpodcast