Vernon is an entry point for monarch butterflies migrating north from their wintering grounds in Mexico.
In June, a group of nature lovers got together on the back deck of Vermont Woods Studios and shared milkweed seeds and plants — milkweed is the monarch’s only food source and the over-use of pesticides has nearly eliminated it from today’s landscape. We are planting milkweed in our gardens and backyards with the goal of providing habitat that will bring monarchs back to Vermont.
In the last few decades, Peggy Farabaugh noticed a distinct decline in the monarch butterfly population. After learning why, she decided to do something about it.
During the first week of September, the back deck of Vermont Woods Studios, the Vernon business she owns with her husband, Ken, became a sort of caterpillar hatchery.
“We have 15 cocoons in mesh hampers, and some on the milkweed plants in the field” behind the building, she said. The pupae should hatch into monarch butterflies by mid-month.
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Our Vermont furniture store is located in the lush foothills of the Green Mountain National Forest, about 3 1/2 hours north of Manhattan. Maybe we’re not the closest or easiest showroom to get to, but once you’re here we think you’ll be glad you made the trip.
I guess word is getting around about our unique Vermont furniture store because we’re starting to get many visitors from New York, Boston and other metropolitan areas. Customers tell us they’re looking for something beautiful, sustainable and uniquely theirs. That’s why we’re here, of course but “here” isn’t necessarily easy to find.
Directions to Stonehurst, Our Fine Furniture Showroom
So Rebecca and I teamed up with next-door neighbor, Drew Amidon to make a video showing the route to Stonehurst, our Vermont Woods Studios furniture showroom. Drew made the scenic journey and filmed it from Interstate 91 (exit 28A, Northfield, Route 10), past the Inn at Crumpin Fox, left onto Bald Mountain Road, right onto Huckle Hill Road and 5 miles to Stonehurst. He used his GoPro and drone helicopter to show visitors just where we are and what to expect when they get here.
Rebecca was kind enough to narrate the video and even made a few cameo appearances. Check it out, Stonehurst: How to Get Here.
An Autumn view from Stonehurst, our showroom in the woods.
Most Furniture Stores Don’t Have to Make a Video on How to Get to Their Showroom
Who had the crazy idea of putting a fine furniture store in the middle of nowhere, anyway? OK that was me. Well… sustainability is important to me and it’s part of the mission of our company. Customers come to us because they want to feel good about their furniture. They want to know where their furniture comes from. They want to be sure it originates in a sustainable forest that provides recreation & habitat for wildlife, a forest that’s going to be around for future generations.
Stonehurst in the summer. Our showroom is located on a 109 acre woodland in southern Vermont so customers can experience the kind of sustainable environment in which their furniture originates.
So when the Stonehurst property on 109 acres of pristine woodlands became available in 2012 I knew it was the perfect location for a Vermont Woods Studios showroom. We’re 3 1/2 hours from Manhattan and 2 hours from Boston. It’s a beautiful drive to get here and once you arrive, you’ll feel a relaxed Vermont vibe before you even get our of your car. Be sure to pack a picnic basket and a bottle of wine because fine furniture shopping should never be rushed.
See you in the woods!
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A Final Glimpse of This Year’s Monarch Butterfly Migration
Cycle one of our monarch butterfly restoration project is coming to a close here at Vermont Woods Studios. Over the past week and a half, our monarchs have been hatching one by one. The first, taking us by surprise with its ability to speedily release itself from its chrysalis. In just a short moment, the monarch broke through the chrysalis and pulled its damp body from the small structure. The Stonehurst staff monitored the fledgling butterfly excitedly as it clung to the shell of the chrysalis, drying slowly.
Eventually the butterfly dried itself and went off in search of food to prepare itself for its migration journey. One by one, our other chrysalises turned shiny and black and we knew it would only be a matter of days before all of our monarchs would be beautiful, bouncing, baby butterflies ready to fly off into the world.
We are proud and happy to see the caterpillars we raised turn into the delicate winged creatures they are today. In this first cycle of the project, we have seen the release of twenty monarch butterflies. Being the business people we are, we appreciate this achievement that we have reached but we also strive to do better in the future.
The end of the first cycle of this project gives way to the second cycle that will start almost immediately. Our CEO Peggy has been watching the milkweed pods carefully for a week now and has determined that the time has come for us to once again harvest the seeds. As we head quickly into the second cycle of monarch restoration, we hold in our minds ways to maximize the habitat restoration and amount of monarchs we will be able to foster and release in the spring.
We hope to harvest and distribute more seeds than last year. We plan to raise seedlings ourselves to give out in the spring time to those dedicated people who promise to plant them on their land. We are already percolating new ideas for monarch caterpillar rearing environments with hopes of a terrarium in the near future.
This year we took on 50 monarch caterpillars but we know we can handle more than that. The success of cycle one has given us fuel and ambition to make cycle two of this very important restoration project bigger and better.
(This is part four of a four part blog series on our Monarch Butterfly Restoration Project)
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Environmentally Friendly Furniture Made by Real Vermonters
In 1984, Apple computer launched the Macintosh. It was the first successful mouse-driven computer that changed the way the world functions today. We’ve all caught on to the awesome and encompassing power of this mouse-driven phenomenon too. Today, most of us, bleary-eyed and droopy tailed, crawl from our comfortable beds in the morning and turn our computers on en route to make coffee.
We search the web for news and browse our social media, snickering at embarrassing pictures of Aunt Sue from the last family gathering. We know that we can get anything we want when we want it simply by making a few gentle clicks of a mouse.
Being able to do this makes our crazy lives a bit easier. Now we don’t have to go into the store, talk to the sales people and carry our purchases home with us. We can search, click, put in some personal info and expect our prize on our doorstep in 3-5 business days.
Here’s the other thing our powerful computers have given us, options. You can have any bed, dresser or dining room table you want from wherever you want. It’s no longer a pool of five possibilities but hundreds of thousands, and we have to make decisions.
You decide who you want to buy from; what business you want to support. That support creates a ripple effect in the economy, the environment and in the lives of people like me and you.
Often with the good, we are forced to let in the bad. The computer has given us so much but it has also taken something very important away. It has become a barricade in the way of real connection.
You may not ever know who tediously screwed the limbs onto the dolls you bought your children or what hands so diligently assembled the furniture you trust to hold you up and keep you comfortable. You can only speculate as to the stories of the lives of the people who provide you with the real life objects you saw on-screen.
At Vermont Woods Studios, we know we’re not comfortable with that reality. So, this is a message from us to you about who we are: We are 12 fun-loving, hard-working people dedicated to selling only American-Vermont made furniture.
Sean and friends visiting one of our workshops.
We are people who have taken the time to establish relationships with our craftspeople. We know their work, we know their hobbies and we remember when they had experimental pony-tails.
We laugh and joke and eat lunch together. We know Sean loves Thai food and Dennis needs to snack.
It’s not just us and our craftspeople you support when you buy our furniture, it’s also our mission. With each order we take, we plant trees through our partners at Forests for Monarchs or The Nature Conservancy. The success of the company has allowed us to dedicate more time to researching and raising awareness about deforestation in the rainforest.
We love when people all around the country buy our furniture and proudly display it in their homes or offices. We want you to know that no matter where you are and when you order from us, it is always this solid group of hard workers on the other end getting you what you need in an environmentally responsible and people oriented way.
Thank you for your continued support.
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When we first started this monarch conservancy project, we knew a key pillar to success would be to spread the word. In order for a change to happen, people need to know that a change is necessary; intervention is necessary and knowledge is power.
You would think that raising awareness would be simple in our social media flooded climate. A post to Facebook would reach the eyes of hundreds and if they deemed it worthy of sharing, thousands. A quick and to-the-point blast to twitter would reach another thousand. Our website and blog would reach yet another; so, prospects were looking good.
Announcements were made, posts posted and blogs painstakingly pulled from the most creative corners of our minds until one day, Jeff was discovered. For those of you who somehow don’t know, Jeff is our monarch champion mascot and he’s pretty famous as of Wednesday when his picture first appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer.
A day later, an article appeared highlighting the need for monarch restoration and upping the ante on spreading awareness.
Jeff! Jeff! Can we have your autograph?
We at Vermont Woods Studio are extremely grateful to the local people, media and Jeff for getting the word out. We are very excited to continue reporting on our cohort of monarchs until they take flight and go off on their own in the world.
Don’t Panic! That’s not the end. Once our little Jeff and his cronies fly the coop, we will shed an honorary tear and then get back to work hatching plans to harvest more milkweed seeds to plant this fall. There is no time to waste people, we have monarchs to rehabilitate!
(This is part three of a four part blog series on our Monarch Butterfly Restoration Project)
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Vermont Woods Studios Prepares Monarchs for Take-off
On a beautiful day straddling the line between August and September, we huddled on the deck of Vermont Woods Studios at our Stonehurst property. Five adults and two children all gazing in mirrored excitement at the progress of our monarch caterpillars as they forge their ways into butterfly-hood.
“I’m going to name him Jeff!” One of the young boys informed the group as Peggy Farabaugh, the CEO of Vermont Woods Studios and head caterpillar-rearer, gently scooped up two prized caterpillars and secured them safely in a jar for the boys to bring to their grandmother’s.
It has been two weeks since the arrival of the caterpillar babies (or larva) and already they are well on their way to adulthood. However, their transformation is far more magical than that of any other aging process. They came to us as tiny creatures no bigger than a grain of rice and have rapidly transformed into vibrant, two inched beauties that scuttle about their mesh hamper confinement eating milkweed and maturing with natural grace.
It is marvelous to watch the caterpillars inch their way to the top of the hamper and methodically suspend themselves upside down in a J shape. This is a signal to the world that the caterpillars are ready to enter the pupa or chrysalis stage of life. The caterpillars work tirelessly in this J-shape to molt their skin and transform their outer appearance into the grass green, gold speckled chrysalis.
“I wonder what they’re doing in there all the time.” Peggy mused, affectionately grooming the caterpillar habitat. The allure of mystery gripped us all as we watched the beautiful chrysalises hang, cautiously enveloping the transforming caterpillar.
In about two weeks the chrysalises will have turned black and the monarch butterfly will be ready to emerge with damp, fledgling wings. In the short span of two hours, the monarch’s wings will dry and it will be lusting for flight. Thus our babies will leave us and safety of the Stonehurst deck.
However, it won’t be a sad day, for on this day we will have reached our goal. With the help of Orley R. “Chip” Taylor, founder of the Monarch Watch program at the University of Kansas, we will have completed cycle one of the Monarch Restoration project. The Vermont Woods Studios company developed an objective: to help restore the monarch population. Success is heavily contingent on three pillars: milkweed restoration, healthy, migration-ready monarchs and continued research.
Last October and November, Peggy and the Vermont Woods Studios staff went out in search of milkweed. Pods gathered along route 142 were brought back to the studio where seeds were harvested and packaged for distribution.
Seeds were distributed to local gardeners and nature enthusiasts, clients and planted on the Stonehurst property. 1 in 100 milkweed seeds strewn across the earth will produce a plant. Because of these small odds, we chose to carefully plant 80 seeds on the Stonehurst property yielding 80 viable milkweed plants.
Along with learning the importance of carefully planting the milkweed seeds, the Vermont Woods Studios staff have also developed important information for rearing monarch caterpillars:
Whenever it is possible, raise the caterpillars in a terrarium
Do not allow direct sunlight to hit the terrarium
Monarch caterpillars grow quickly and this process can be messy, so cleaning the terrarium frequently is a must
One of our monarch caterpillars getting ready to transition into a chrysalis
Once our monarchs are ready for flight, we have one last piece of the puzzle to put in place before we can call the project a success. Chip founded Monarch Watch in 1992 and has been studying monarch migration since 2005. The eastern monarchs born at the end of the summer months have the innate task of migrating to Mexico. This migration will take four generations of monarchs.
Our Stonehurst monarchs will fly just a portion of the way and then stop to lay eggs and die as the new babies begin the growing process and mature to fly their portion of the trip. This process will repeat until the final generation sails over sunny Mexico and makes themselves comfortable for eight to nine months when the United States is again habitable for the return of the monarchs.
How did people come to have such intimate detail about the migration pattern of these tireless creatures? The answer to this is evolving through research, which brings us to the final stage of the project: tagging the monarchs.
Before our monarchs take flight, we will place a small, adhesive tag, provided by Chip and his team on the wings of our monarchs. These tags will signal researchers to know where the monarchs came from and provide other valuable research that will continue to help rehabilitate the monarch population.
As we stand on the deck, without a chill in the air and watch the chrysalises form, we know the journey our caterpillars have before them. We discuss tagging the butterflies with nervous laughter, none of us having ever done it before; but were willing to try because we know that it is one key step in encouraging the comeback of these magical creatures.
(This is part two of a four part blog series on our Monarch Butterfly Restoration Project)
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Last Fall we harvested milkweed seeds on a property Vernon, VT. Owner David Berrie (of David Berrie Real Estate) has been very kind and supportive of our work to help save the monarch butterfly and we extend our thanks! We planted the milkweed seeds this Spring and many of the plants are now thriving in gardens around town. Now it’s time to put them to work, hosting monarch caterpillars as they metamorphose into butterflies.
Vernon: A Gateway Into Vermont
The little village of Vernon, Vermont that houses Vermont Woods Studios is in the very southeastern corner of our state. It’s an entry point for monarch butterflies migrating North from their wintering grounds in Mexico. We’ve written earlier about the plight of the monarch and the fact that it’s on the brink of extinction due to the pervasive use of the herbicide RoundUp. But residents of Vernon are not inclined to sit idly by and watch this iconic butterfly disappear.
Team Monarch
Monarch Butterfly Party | Vermont Woods Studios
In June, a group of nature lovers got together on the back deck of Vermont Woods Studios and shared milkweed seeds and plants (milkweed is the monarch’s only food source and the use of RoundUp has nearly eliminated it from today’s landscape). We are planting milkweed in our gardens and backyards with the goal of providing habitat that will bring monarchs back to Vermont. If you’d like to join us please let me know. I have plenty of milkweed seeds and plants for anyone who would like to plant them.
Foster A Monarch Caterpillar
I also have 20 tiny little monarch caterpillars who are looking for foster parents willing to rear them. Would you like to be a foster parent for a monarch? Many of you will remember Carol Richardson who introduced Vernon’s kindergarteners to monarch rearing every Fall for many years. What a wonderful teacher she was! In those days Monarchs were abundant and Carol would bring several caterpillars into the classroom in late August/early September. The kids would watch them transform from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly over the span of a couple weeks.
That was only 15 years ago but now there are no caterpillars to be found. What nature invested 50 million years of evolution into, man has nearly wiped out in less than 2 decades. But there’s still hope! At Vermont Woods Studios we connected with Dr. Chip Taylor at the University of Kansas. Dr. Taylor has created MonarchWatch, an organization that’s dedicated to bringing the beautiful orange and black butterfly back from the brink of extinction.
Dr Taylor sent us a couple dozen tiny caterpillars to raise in our community. Stop by the old Pine Top Ski area, now Stonehurst at Vermont Woods Studios at 538 Huckle Hill Rd to pick up a couple caterpillars if you’d like to help bring this species back. Follow our work on Facebook and Twitter.
(This is part one of a four part blog series on our Monarch Butterfly Restoration Project)
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Our Shaker furniture sale is going on today! Do you know where this timeless and enduring furniture comes from? Take our quiz below and then come visit us at Stonehurst to appreciate Shaker style up close and personal.
In honor of our current Shaker furniture sale, I thought we should highlight a little history about the people who developed this beautiful, simple and elegant style. Their creation is timeless and enduring & it continues to be one of the most popular fashions in the furniture market today.
I bet you already know a bit of history about the Shakers. Test your knowledge by filling in the blanks below:
The term Shakers is derived from the Shaking __________, a small, radical group from England who first came to America in 1774, led by the prophet Ann Lee.
Today there is only one active Shaker community, with three members, who live on _______________ Lake in the state of _____________.
______________ was a part of Shaker orthodoxy, so Believers had no choice but to recruit people from the outside world to prevent their communities from dying out.
Early Shaker furniture makers focused on simplicity in their designs because they believed that excessive ornamentation or decoration was a sin of _________.
The Shakers were among the first in America to try mass production. Unlike the Amish, the Shakers embraced technology that increased ____________, believing that they were saving time that belonged to God.
How did you do? Check your answers with the key below:
Quakers
Sabbathday Lake in Maine
Celibacy
Pride
Efficiency
Of course this beautiful style can’t be fully appreciated in photos, so make plans to come visit us at Stonehurst and shop our Shaker furniture sale today!
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Today’s Huffington Post features an article about Vermont Woods Studios by our favorite journalist and champion of women in business, Laura Dunn. The article is part of a series spotlighting the contributions of a diverse spectrum of women leading commercial businesses, academic institutions, media outlets, governments and non-profits. We are infinitely grateful to Laura for including me and Vermont Woods Studios in her line-up of famous and not so famous people who are working to change the world.
In addition to writing for the Huffington Post, Politico and The Daily Beast, Laura has her own successful blog, Political Style, which discusses politics, fashion and culture. Although she hails from across the pond, Laura interned in the US House of Representatives for Rep. Patrick J Kennedy and has worked on many election campaigns. She currently works for an Assembly Member at the National Assembly for Wales. Her feature on Vermont Woods Studios explores why we started the company and highlights the green mission that holds us together through thick and thin.
I want to take this opportunity to shout out a word of thanks to our customers, employees and other partners who have made Vermont Woods Studios successful over our 10 year existence. You are the real heroes — the ones who are fueling the movement and making our sustainable furniture business possible. We are deeply grateful.
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