Summer School

This week on Vermont Edition marks the beginning of the sixth annual Summer School series . Each week throughout the season we find knowledgeable tutors to teach you a new skill, or help refine one you already possess.

Stone walls cross the Vermont landscape, but building them has become something of a dying art. So that’s what we learn in today’s installment of Summer School! Thea Alvin is a dry stonemason who lives on a small farm in Morrisville, which is adorned with stonewalls and arches. She says there’s a mixture of skill and of creativity involved.

If you've ever made iced coffee, your efforts may have involved pouring piping hot joe over ice cubes that immediately melt, or sticking your leftover coffee in the fridge. But there's another way. Oh yes. For this week's Summer School lesson, we get an education in cold brew coffee. It's perfect for the summer, because you don't even need to boil water – but you do need a bit of patience. "Cold brew involves pouring room temperature water over coarsely ground coffee and letting it sit for 12 to

Contra dancing is a popular pastime in rural states like Vermont. Usually in these dances, couples come together for a fun, energetic, social evening with other enthusiastic dancers. The way these groups avoid running into one another or stepping on toes is they have a caller. The caller calls the dance, step by step, with an overview before the music even starts. And the best callers have national followings. Today in our Summer School series, we get a lesson in how to call a contra dance from

When you’re out on the water, whether it’s a calm lake or pond or a fast-moving river, you might face a situation in which your boat flips over. When that happens, it’s natural for you to be panicked. But, there are a couple of options of what you can do next. You can perform a wet exit, where you basically slide out of your kayak by ripping off the neoprene layer or spray skirt that keeps the water out of the interior of the kayak. Or do a roll, which allows the kayaker to get rightside up

Pizza is an American tradition like ice cream and apple pie, or hot dogs at baseball games. Most of us order a pie when we don’t feel like cooking, but it turns out pizza can be pretty fun and easy to make at home. As long as you get the dough right. For a Summer School lesson in how to make pizza dough, we met up with Jay Vogler, owner of Pizza On Earth. He serves wood-fired pizza on Thursdays and Fridays throughout the summer at his Charlotte farm.

Fly fishing is a popular pastime in Vermont, and it’s intertwined with the state’s history - former Governor George Aiken has a fly named after him. As popular as it might be, fly fishing isn’t easy. So for this week’s Summer School, we went out with a veteran fisherwoman to learn some of the finer points of casting: how to find a good spot to fish, what fly to use, and where to cast.We met with our expert just outside Burlington at Muddy Brook Park, but her tips have helped her all across the U

Viveka Fox, head coach of the Vermont Fencing Alliance, has been involved in the sport for 38 years and it still hasn’t gotten old. “Every bout is interesting and new to me,” she says, “because every opponent is different. I see every opponent as a problem to be solved. I love the strategy part of the game. But I also feel it gives me a great full-body workout.”Fox calls fencing “a one-on-one battle between two people using a weapon. “There are three types of weapons that are used in modern

Mackenzie Sivret is a two-time karaoke competitor and a frequent performer at karaoke nights in the Burlington area. For Vermont Edition's Summer School series, she shares her advice for anyone thinking about taking the mic. “Start thinking about what song you’re going to sing before you get to the karaoke bar. Think about what artist’s voice seems similar to yours,” says Sivret. But she warns against choosing an obscure song, even if you can sing it well. “Try to find something that you think

Ever wondered what it's like to pilot your very own plane? For the next installment of Vermont Edition's Summer School series, we hop into a Cessna 150 for a flying lesson with Kevin Coffrin, an instructor at the Vermont Flight Academy. It can cost between $8,000 and $10,000 to become a certified pilot, so we opted for a basic Discovery Flight — an introductory ground lesson and a one-hour flight with tutorials in basic flight controls, including turning, ascending and descending. Oh, and