"The Bagel" on safari on the eleventh hole at Green Mountain National 

All this morning, delivery trucks are driving up and down the Killington Road visiting every establishment to get ready for Independence Day weekend and the kick off of the summer season at Killington. At the Birch Ridge Inn, for instance, we have had deliveries from 3 different beer and wine distributors, and 3 different food purveyors. And we are not alone in firing up our kitchen for the summer.

The Killington Resort begins it's operation today with the official opening of mountain bike season. The K1 Gondola is running, taking people to the top of Killington Peak. There should be some spectacular summer views from the Killington Peak walkway that the resort installed last fall.

Elsewhere in town, the golf courses are lush with all of the spring rain the area has received. I played yesterday with some friends at Green Mountain National Golf Course. While it was damp in a few predictable locations (Hole 4 for instance), overall the greens and fairways are in superb shape. Of course, my golf game needs a little work, but the summer is still early.

Stating the obvious, however, as todays picture shows, to enjoy the greens and fairways at Green Mountain National, you have to hit the ball on them. "The Bagel", demonstrating the fine art of the recovery shot, had a few errant shots during yesterdays round. Today's picture is of him on the 11th hole at Green Mountain. He hit his drive deep into the woods to the right of the tee, but before an area that is 'red staked". He found the ball, and was able to successfully hit it out of the woods into the fairway, setting up a third shot to the green on the 350 yard hole.

The restaurant at Birch Ridge reopens for the summer season tonight with dinner service this weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening starting at 6:00 PM. Next week we begin our normal summer dinner service with dinner Tuesday thru Saturday evenings. If you have a chance to visit Killington this weekend, stop on bye.

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!

6th Green at Killington Resort Golf Course with Killington and Skye Peaks in the background. 

A day without rain...YES!

It is hard to guess when summer will establish itself in Killington. Thus far this month the weather, work, and family health issues have conspired to limit my time on the golf course. Other than the year I was out of action with a torn up shoulder, I doubt I have posted fewer scores in June (only 2 this year) since moving to Killington and becoming an innkeeper. Hopefully, as a new weather pattern gets established, that should all change.

Weather or not, and that is not a typo, the commercial part of the summer season in Killington is rapidly approaching. Inn guests are starting to randomly arrive at the inn from various points around the globe as they begin their summer vacations. Chef Frizzie is back at work, getting the restaurant ready to re-open for the summer season this Friday. (Can you believe that this coming Friday is July 1st?) Projects around the inn are being completed. Today, for instance, it was cleaning the carpet in the Great Room. Planning is taking place for other projects to be completed before the arrival of the fall season in late September. It has actually been a pretty busy spring.

One of the projects I have been working on is a new mobile website for the inn. A while ago I changed the blog to properly display on mobile devices with some custom designed software. The state of the art in software technology has continued to changed. For those of you who are technically inclined, there are any number of "frameworks" that can serve as a foundation for web development. For the mobile version of birchridge.com, I am using a framework based upon JQuery called, appropriately enough, JQuery Mobile.

If you are interested in looking at our mobile website and use an IOS or Android based mobile phone, you can go directly to birchridge.com and you should be routed to the mobile site. Otherwise, you can visit m.birchridge.com and visit the site directly. (If you visit the site on a desktop or laptop computer, you can shrink the width of the browser window you are using to simulate what the screen would look like on a mobile phone.) Its just a start, and more work will undoubtedly be done on our web sites in the coming weeks and months, but as is said in proper Bostonian...ya gotta start somewhaare...

With the July 4th weekend coming, we do plan on being out on the course a few times this week(weather permitting). The rain we have received has left the Green Mountains a resplendent emerald shade. Just perfect for a walk in the woods, or a stroll down the fairway.

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!

Killington Wine Festival planned for July 22-24, 2011 

In fits and starts, summer is gaining a foot hold in Killington.

The last bits of snow are barely visible on the upper Superstar headwall. A few hardy souls, our assistant Merisa among them, have been hiking almost daily for the final turns of the season. She has written about them on her blog, "Tales from a Female Ski Bum".

Around the inn, Mary is in full swing planting the gardens. The perennial beds have mostly been cleaned out. Annuals are starting to appear in strategic locations. And bark mulch is just about every where.

I have been focusing my time writing some software for a project you will hear about in a couple of weeks, and working on planning this years edition of the Killington Wine Festival.

This year, the Killington Wine Festival celebrates it's 10th Anniversary with a 3 day event from July 22 thru July 24th. The event kicks off on Friday the 22nd with and "Estate Tasting" of fine wines at the Killington Grand Hotel. On Saturday, July 23rd, the "Grand Tasting" takes place in tents outside of the K1 Base Lodge at the Killington Resort. The Birch Ridge Inn will be hosing our 10th Annual Wine Festival Dinner in the evening of the 23rd. The festival closes with the "Bubbly Brunch" and "Wine and Nine" on Sunday the 24th. The "Bubbly Brunch" will take place at Wally's restaurant on the Killington Road. "Wine and Nine" will be held Sunday afternoon at the Green Mountain National Golf Course.

More information about the Wine Festival, including online advance ticket purchasing, can be found by visiting the Killington Chamber of Commerce's wine festival web page. Of course, at the Birch Ridge Inn, we are offering a complete set of Wine Festival Packages including lodging, tickets and dinner, for the event. Follow the link to birchridge.com for more information on wine festival packages from Birch Ridge.

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!

Driving the ball off the 6th tee at Green Mountain National Golf Course. 

In the "be careful what you wish for" category, summer has finally arrived in Killington.

The fierce weather which brought the tragic tornadoes to the mid-west has finally made it to the Green Mountain State. While we have had some very significant periods of thunderstorms with heavy downpours, we also have had a few days where the weather was sunny and warm, if not down right hot and humid. The weather has improved so much, in fact, that we were able to get in 2 full rounds of golf at Green Mountain National Golf Course this week for the first time this golf season.

On Wednesday, Mary and I had the opportunity to play in the "Jeff Hadley Day" charity tournament to raise funds for ALS research. Jeff was the first golf pro at Green Mountain National who sadly succumbed to ALS in 2006.

In addition to Mary and I, our group for the Jeff Hadley Day tournament included former innkeeper Nina Tasi, Steve Selbo of SP Land and Phil Davis, VT PGA pro at Manchester Country Club. We came in at 9 under for the tournament. Given that none of us other than the pro had played a full round of golf this year, our score was quite respectable. We were well out of the money, however, as the winning team of the tournament came in at 17 under.

On Friday, Mary and I had a chance to play a regular round of golf. Green Mountain National is in great shape. With luck, this week should be the start of a nice golf season in Killington.

Where ever you may be this Memorial Day weekend, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!

Daffodils in bloom in Killington 

Although Edgar Allen Poe wrote his iconic poem about a bleak December, he could have easily been commenting about the weather we have been having all over the Northeast this May. While we watch with angst the television reports of the Mississippi River overrunning it's banks, many in Vermont and New York along Lake Champlain are facing the same problems. In Killington, aside from the local pond or two that is beyond it's normal high water point, the primary disease afflicting those of us calling Killington home this May is probably some form of Vitamin D deficiency, caused by lack of sunshine striking the area.

While there is still a patch of snow on Superstar, the ski season is quickly receding into long term memory. The immediate tasks of cleaning up from a very snowy winter are foremost on many of our minds, as we prepare for the summer months in the Green Mountains.

Around the inn, there are a number of projects that have been completed this spring; with an equal number still to go. Mary had begun her annual battle to get the gardens around the inn in shape. It will be several months before the results are truly visible. But a little work now, brings a lot of results when the warm sun of July hits the gardens.

Much of the immediate work around the inn was repairing damage sustained during the winter from all the ice and snow. The slate roofs on the restaurant and Great Room aframes are particularly susceptible to damage. The beautiful snow bridges that form between the aframe roofs and the ground when we have multiple feet of snow on the ground raises havoc with the bottom courses of slate shingles on each roof.

Slate roof repair is an art. Click to enlarge..

Of course, many buildings in the area are slate covered. As long as they are maintained properly to repair any weather damage, their lifetime is virtually unlimited. We made out trek this year over to Poultney to acquire reclaimed slate shingles for the repairs. It is a work of art, matching repaired sections to the existing roof. We are very fortunate to have skilled craftsmen in the area who understand how to do it.

In the realm of "you've got to be kidding", we also had a very large sink hole open up in the parking lot in front of the inn. We have had a couple of small sink holes in the past. The asphalt section of the parking lot dates back to the early 1970's. Every time we get a sink hole, we discover rotten wood as the culprit. It appears that when the parking lot was originally created, a lot of fill with tree stumps and other organic products was used. As the organic material decays over time, voids are created. In the winter months, the voids get filled with water ice, which is a good thing because we don't want the parking lot swallowing guests cars during the dark of night.

Sink hole being repaired Click to enlarge..

But as soon spring hits and warmer temperatures greet Killington, the ice filling any voids melts setting the stage for a surprise. This years surprise was created by a propane truck making a u-turn in the parking lot. The good news is that the truck did not get stuck. The great news is that it happened when the parking lot was empty.

Our excavator was able to clear the hole and pack in some fresh soil. It will take a month of so for the soil he used to settle, before a top coat of hard pack is applied to level out the driveway. It is just one of those things that make running your own business never a dull moment.

The web site for Birch Ridge, birchridge.com has been updated to our summer colors. If you are planning a trip this way, our golf package calculator has been updated with rate information from both the Killington and Green Mountain National Golf Courses.

Keep in mind.....Summer is just around the corner at Killington. The rain will stop. The sun will shine, and the Green Mountains will turn a luscious shade green. Now if I can get all my work down around the inn so I can go out and enjoy it...that would be great too!

Wherever you may be, hopefully you don't need a raft, and you need some sun screen!

Sign at town hall at Killington. 

History was made last night in Killington. It is up to the residents of the town to use the results responsibly. Only time will tell.

The legal reason for last nights meeting was to revote on the budget that was voted down at the Town Meeting held in March. With little discussion, the residents in attendance voted approval for the budget by voice vote from the floor. A couple of brief housekeeping issues followed, before the controversial issues on the meetings agenda broke the meeting wide open.

The first series of articles discussed were on Australian Ballot voting. Diane Rosenblum and myself co-sponsored the original petition to place this issue before the town meeting. My partner, Mary, gave the introductory remarks to those assembled to begin the discussion.

Having studied history as a hobby, it never ceases to amaze me how people who perceive they are in power attempt to limit the rights of other people to vote. Words were spoken about the history of the town, about the honor of the process, and about maintaining town traditions. While they were all worthy arguments deserving respect, the turning point occurred when a person against the initiatives spoke about uneducated bartenders and waitresses and housekeepers and ski instructors being allowed to vote in town elections. Since I employ all of the above, I understand that this group is a lot of things, but uneducated is not one of them. Since most of the restaurants and bars in Killington were closed, and since skiing has ended at Killington for the year, there were many bartenders, waiters/waitresses, housekeepers and ski instructors at the meeting. The crowd, realizing the faux pas, went silent.

By far, the proudest moment of the night for Mary and I occurred at this point when our assistant (bartender, waitress, innsitter...she does everything for us) Merisa got up and addressed the crowd. She eloquently told people that she was "a bartender, a waitress, a ski instructor. That she could read. That she was educated. That she worked for a living, and that she was demanding her constitutional right to vote!" It was the turning point of the debate. The audience cheered. It was literally history being made at Killington.

After Merisa's statement, all three Australian Ballot questions passed by comfortable margins. The first article, to adopt future Killington town budgets by Australian Ballot passed 163 to 128. The second article, to vote on all public questions by Australian Ballot passed by 168 to 111. And the third to vote for all Killington elected officers by Australian Ballot passed by 161 to 125.

The last set of articles on the special town meeting agenda were related to changing the number of sitting members of the towns select board from 3 to 5 people. Co-author of these articles, Eileen Godfrey, was invited by the moderator to begin the discussion by presenting the articles and why she sought to place them before this town meeting.

As has been said, "politics ain't bean bag". Supporters of the current 3 member board structure launched a series of speeches designed to sway the crowd, followed by personal attacks on supporters of the article, myself included. Several members of the community got up to the microphone and decried the personal attacks. I am very proud that supporters of the change to the 5 member board did not respond to the personal attacks in like kind. There is no place for that in a small town where we all need to live and work together.

Unfortunately, at last nights meeting, the move to expand the towns select board was voted no by the majority of those in attendance. There were 133 yes votes to 150 no votes to defeat the article.... So it goes..

Later in the evening after the proceedings ended, it was clear while I was out having a beer that the younger generation of Killington voters had been positively energized after participating in the meeting. As an aging baby boomer, I know that the energy and passion displayed later in the evening needs to translate into future action. If it does, then history was truly made in Killington last night. And that will keep Killington being a great town to call home and to visit for many years to come.

Sign at town hall at Killington. 

Below is a letter I have written to the Citizens of Killington as published in the Mountain Times, May 4th, 2011:

Dear Citizens of Killington

On the evening of May 9th, when we gather for the special Killington town meeting, the time has come to make some thoughtful changes to how our town is governed. As residents, we are lucky that there are clear choices. Continued complacency with "the way things have been" is not the solution. Some of the political structures of the towns past are placing impediments to reinvigorating our town, and they should be changed.

During the town meeting, citizen initiatives to change the way voters are included in important town decisions will be decided. Initiatives to change voting to Australian Balloting and to increase the size of the Select Board from 3 to 5 members deserve careful consideration and a "Yes" vote by Killington residents.

Adopting an Australian ballot voting format is long overdue. While it is a wonderful concept that all residents should attend town meeting, the reality is that too many of our citizens are left out due to the structure of life in the 21st century. If Killington is to move forward, more citizens need to take ownership of town governance. Voting by Australian ballot enfranchises everyone, and we need every resident of Killington to participate if our town is to thrive. Please attend town meeting and vote "Yes" on the Australian ballot initiatives.

Expanding the select board to 5 members also is critical to Killington's future. While a 3-member board has "historically worked" for Killington, the challenges facing our town today have rendered the current board structure chaotically dysfunctional. Multiple issues requiring immediate select board focus can no longer be ignored. Maximizing available resources is critical if we are to address economic development, re-examining the town's zoning plan, fixing the financial problems of the Green Mountain National Golf course, and attracting visitors back to our town as the economy recovers. How the select board manages these and other issues will have a direct impact on our local taxes, and the quality of life of all Killington residents.

Moving to a 5-member select board would allow the board to operate more effectively. It would allow for the creation of focused, issue oriented, sub-committees within the board. It would promote broader representation by making select board members more accessible to the community. It would provide greater select board stability for our residents and businesses, as 3 members would carry over each year from the prior years board. At town meeting, please vote "Yes" on the initiative to expand the select board to 5 members.

On a personal note, if the residents of Killington decide to expand the size of the select board, I ask your consideration to fill one of the newly created board seats.

In 1997, after many years of visiting Killington first as "weekenders" then as second homeowners, Mary and I decided to pursue the American Dream and open our own small business. We chose Killington as the place to start the Birch Ridge Inn. We have established strong roots in Killington, both through our business and by volunteering our time and resources to many community organizations. It has not been easy. The political turmoil in both Vermont and Killington has constantly changed the rules on being successful. But that has not dampened our spirit. Killington, at its core, is a beautiful place. We are blessed to be able to call Killington our home.

Please attend the special Killington town meeting on May 9th. Vote "Yes" to increase citizen participation in town government by supporting the Australian ballot initiatives and the change in size of the select board. And if the 5-member select board initiative passes, please give me the honor of your vote for one of the newly created select board seats.

Respectfully
Bill Vines