For many of us, summer is a time to kick back with a good book.  And in some neighborhoods, finding something new to read is as easy as strolling down the street. Little free libraries have been sprouting all over the world—including Vermont. Some are no bigger than a bird house. Others are as large as a phone booth. You leave a book, and take one—no card necessary.

Beware the wild parsnip.

That’s a warning sprouting in emails around the state, as the invasive weed spreads. It looks like a little yellow umbrella atop a stem that can be as long as five feet tall. It won’t hurt to brush along it, but if you break the stem, and the sap on your skin is exposed to sunlight, you can get a nasty burn. Harry Roberts, of Norwich, is seeing more and more of this pesky weed as he motorcycles around the state.

“It’s a very sinister plant and it starts at the roadside and if you don’t mow the adjacent field it takes over the field,” he says.

The 1960s and '70s saw a lot of people arrive in Vermont with the back-to-the-land movement. Their idealism followed the legacies of people like Helen and Scott Nearing, and even Henry David Thoreau well before them. On the next Vermont Edition, we discuss the impulse to find meaning in a life close to nature. Our guest is Rebecca Kneale Gould, a writer and senior lecturer at Middlebury College.

Public Post looks into Vermont's customizable emergency alert system, which is online and expanding. Several ski areas have taken on major projects, from a new orange  "six pack bubble chairlift" at Okemo to a parking garage in Stowe. And now's the time to nominate your favorite summer or fall event for the Vermont Chamber's top ten list.

Seneca Mountain Wind is stopping development of a project that would have placed about 20 turbines at a remote mountaintop site in the Northeast Kingdom. The company has withdrawn its electrical connection request with ISO New England and terminated land leases in Newark, Brighton and Ferdinand.

According to a press release late Friday afternoon, “SMW’s decision reflects its commitment to obtain community support before advancing this project, which was not evident in any of the three jurisdictions where SMW had development plans.”

A published report by Bloomberg news say talks between IBM and GlobalFoundries over the sale of Big Blue’s chip making division, including facilities in Essex Junction, broke down over price.  

Bloomberg cites sources “familiar with the process.”  The report says at issue were IBM’s manufacturing plants, which GlobalFoundries “placed little or no value on” due to their age.

Rumors of a deal between the two companies have been circulating since April.

With their contract set to expire in just over a week, FairPoint Communications and the union representing workers continued their negotiations this week. 

The International Brotherhood of Electrical workers represents about 1,800 FairPoint employees in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 

The union says members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if necessary. 

Mike Spillane is a Vermont member of the IBEW negotiating team. Returning Friday from talks in Nashua, New Hampshire Spillane said the sides are still far apart.

Controversy is swirling in the Upper Valley around one of the oldest food co-ops in the United States. After two popular employees were fired from Co-op Food Stores of New Hampshire without explanation last month, members began questioning how management treats employees.

At a recent Board meeting attended by about 300 members, two starkly different answers emerged.

The Annual Summer Pride Theater Festival continues this weekend in Randolph, featuring three plays that address concerns and issues of gay and lesbian Vermonters.

One of those plays is Farm Boys, an adaptation of a 1996 book by Milwaukee writer Will Fellows.

Will Fellows was himself a gay man raised on a Wisconsin dairy farm. For the book Farm Boys, he gathered testimony from dozens of gay men from rural areas.

Montpelier's fourth community participation event for the planning of the One Taylor Street transit center has been pushed back to September. The event was originally scheduled to be held on July 30. It will now take place on September 3 at 6 p.m. at the Montpelier Senior Activity Center.