There's an old natural cave made of marble on top of mount Aoelus in East Dorset. There is also abandoned marble quarries on the slopes of mount Netop. You can visit them still

To everyone saying that the walls keep sheep in, I can tell you from first hand experience that this is simply not the case. Sheep will stay within the boundaries of cleared land, simply because their food source, grass/pasture, is a product of that cleared land. Farmers did not give a rats ass where their sheep went to pasture, as they did not even keep them in barns (sheep can sleep out in the snow all winter long). The early barns you see were built to store either hay or wheat, the latter of which was grown on cultivated land. And, jf you've ever had to plow land in Vermont and try to plant grain, you will soon realize how much area is lost to rocks if you do not make a concerted effort to remove them, dragging them along with your plow until you reach the boundary of your field (where you pile them up to get them out of the way). If you pay close attention you will find that land that was too steep to plow will not have stone walls, although it was most certainly cleared and used for sheep.

Stone walls served absolutely no purpose other than a dumping ground for excess stones turned up during plowing.

Great, well we only accept cash or check here, but I'll just tell you that for free (bonus knowledge)

You can take my masterclass. 30% off today only

Tbh I didn't even read the article when I posted my first comment. The context of that is actually quite sad. My apologies, I was just referring to people going out on their own accord. Gotta be smart about it or don't take the risk.

I mean, I'm not sure what to tell you, but grown men should understand the risks of going out on a frozen lake. If they had dementia or something else, sure, that's another problem. I was taught to carefully check how thick the ice is before taking such a huge risk. Like I don't think you can really sympathize with someone going out on ice in 50° sunshine.

Don't worry, it'll weed out the idiots.

I agree with you, but it never helps to say that something you're debating is "not up for debate". Just give this dude some links my guy

There's definitely two things that I see happening:

1. Climate change. The average temperature has increased by 2°F in the last 100 years. There's no denying that. If you look at the historical weather patterns for Vermont, specifically the temperature data, we have definitely had more erratic temperature shifts in the last 20 years, meaning more thawing, probably due to the destabilizing of the jet stream (which is giving us this weird weather right now).

2. Confirmation bias. You don't need to point to every single temperature shift or seemingly strange weather pattern as "climate change". This honestly makes it harder to communicate with people who refuse to believe in climate change because you just start sounding like a broken record and honestly what's happening here is just subjective.

Climate change is real. It's in the data. But telling other people your subjective experience of the weather = proof of climate change just makes them chuckle to themselves. The best way to approach it is scientifically, because that's what this is.

The evergreen is a reference to the Green Mountain Boys, who wore a sprig of fir or hemlock in the band of their hats. It also represents perpetuity, continuing to uphold the values of freedom and unity.

Many houses in Vermont are quite old, and were built before insulation existed. This meant that during the winter, the heat from the fire would heat up the roof and consistently encourage the snow to shed. The rafters were at most designed to carry the weight of the slate, but snow was not really considered an issue due to this heating effect and the steep pitched roofs. After insulation and air sealing became widespread in the 1950s, people began to became more concerned with the snow load, since the roof remained cold and the snow did not shed as readily. That is why now many people with old houses have to be careful in the winter to remove excessive amounts of snow from their roofs. Hope this helps!

Yeah pretty much. Do what you want with your money, but you obviously have an entitled attitude that assumes your actions have no consequences.

The resulting tax situation would be either the same or better in terms of revenue because some portion of the second homes would simply foot the bill for higher taxes while others would free up homes for locals. I for one will not be grateful to my rich, vacation home overlords. Fuck that

I am sick of this narrative that "Vermont needs the rich second home owners". It's straight up bullshit. We have cleaning businesses and property management because we are adaptable and resourceful people. If you left tomorrow we'd just shuffle our business model again. We don't need rich people, that's an elitist attitude. I'd love to see the statistic, by the way, on how second homes bring "tens of thousands of jobs to the state."

Second homes are already being taxed. Nothing to do with property rights. Why should we cater to wealthy outsiders and continue to shoot ourselves in the foot? Just use the money to fund universal childcare for Vermonters or something like that.

Just tax the shit out of second homes until they sell to locals. I couldn't figure out why people wouldn't support this, but that's because all the rich folk with their single family home vacation properties are on this sub.

I run my own business buddy, and I can't buy his land if it's not for sale genius

This is fucking gold right here

Could you send me the link to that, because I'm not finding a state law in regards to property occupation re: ADUs

People obviously can't just move or they wouldn't be homeless dumbass

Not that would be easy to run utilities or construct a driveway

I hope you enjoy that check at the expense of yet another homeless family in Vermont. Your greed is not welcome here

I can understand how it may sound in my post, but this situation is definitely not as benign as your comment would portray. Yes, the get togethers with ATVs blaring sirens and music till midnight do get annoying when you have kids and animals that need a decent rest, but it's the further development of the property directly adjacent to me that has me concerned. If it were not for the allure of non-residents to "cash in" on their slice of Vermont with Airbnb's, no way he'd be putting up an ADU right next to where my kids play outside.

Besides, this is more of an issue of people importing their attitude toward neighbors from shitty places where people just step all over each other to get their cake. I also have a spot that I could eventually develop into an Airbnb, but I have ruled this out already because it's right next to my neighbors house, and I actually have respect for their space and privacy. That's the thing about Vermont, we function without as much regulation as other states because we respect each others right to live undisturbed and in our own space, and are content to live off our land.

Reminds me of an Ethan Allen quote "The gods of the hills are not the gods of the valley".

I agree 100%. It makes no damn sense to let non-residents squeeze lower working class people out of property ownership or being able to afford to live in their home town. Rich folks moving in used to be good, when there were just several summer homes, and they behaved like they were guests, not like they owned the whole place. If they don't contribute to the local economy like a real neighbor, they ought to, at the very least, pay more taxes to the town. At least we could afford more sand for our road maintenance budget, or even another dump truck.