Vermont

How a late Vermont illustrator who embraced slow living rose to social media stardom – VTDigger

Published

10 months ago

January 20, 2025

How a late Vermont illustrator who embraced slow living rose to social media stardom – VTDigger

Tasha Tudor in her homestead in Brattleboro. Photo by Richard W. Brown, courtesy of Amy Tudor

Before social media or even the internet, Tasha Tudor embodied the cottagecore aesthetic now finding adherents on TikTok and Instagram.

The Marlboro artist and homesteader died in 2008, leaving behind 75 years worth of illustrations that have appeared in more than 100 books, most of them children’s books. Behind her illustrations was a lifestyle that reflected the charm of rural simplicity.

That is why Tudor is now being hailed online as the original pioneer of the cottagecore aesthetic — a trend that romanticizes rural charm and a self-sufficient lifestyle. More than 20 million videos featuring her have been posted on TikTok alone, with many sharing her illustrations and expressing a desire for a life like hers in the captions. She also regularly appears in Instagram content.

Her resurgence among a younger online audience speaks to a generational yearning for escape from the fast-paced, hyper-digital modern world. Tudor’s life — filled with gardening, cooking and candle making — offers a counterpoint to the pressures of burnout culture.

For many, she embodies the cottagecore ethos of a slower, more intentional way of living. In an era defined by climate anxiety, younger people find inspiration in her ability to romanticize the everyday and create beauty from the ordinary.

In an interview, her granddaughter-in-law said Tudor would undoubtedly have appreciated her social media stardom. “She loved sharing her ideas. Her illustrations recorded her daily life. I joke that Tasha was the original lifestyle blogger,” said Amy Tudor.

The Vermont artist’s work also continues to resonate beyond the online realm.

Photo by Richard W. Brown, courtesy of Amy Tudor

While Vermont — her longtime home — lacks a dedicated museum, Tudor’s artistry enjoys remarkable acclaim in Japan, with the Tasha Tudor Museum in Yamanashi Prefecture, which opens seasonally.

In addition to the permanent museum, a traveling exhibit opened for two weeks in Tokyo, with 10,000 attendees. The exhibit will move to the Niigata Prefectural Botanical Garden from mid-March to May.

Amy Tudor said her popularity in Japan started with a single magazine article.

Photographer Richard W. Brown, who took thousands of images of Tasha Tudor and her garden, said, “I’ve probably done 25 books on her in Japan because she’s practically a deity there.”

Brown, who also published three books on Tudor in the U.S. and penned numerous magazine articles, remembered the first time he met her. An American culture magazine had asked him to take photos of her greenhouse.

“When I drove there, I couldn’t believe it. The world she created there was like getting out of a time capsule back 100 years,” Brown said. Her garden was huge, he recalled, and filled with fruit trees and flowers like poppies, foxgloves, peonies and daffodils.

In her modest Cape Cod-style house with wide plank flooring and stenciled patterns over its small windows, Tudor’s living area was a reflection of her simple way of living. The space featured an iron cook stove, pink tea sets, a red tablecloth and antique handcrafted furnishings.

Before she married Tudor’s grandson Winslow, Amy Tudor spent a summer working as a garden apprentice for Tasha Tudor. She recalled Tudor inviting her up for a tea party.

“It was like visiting a museum that was still alive,” she said. “Candles were lit all the time, even during the summer.”

Troy Mathers, a close friend of the Tudor family, also has evocative memories of visiting Tasha Tudor for several summers at her Vermont home.

“Her staircase has been traveled on so many times. You could see the traffic of the feet on the board,” Mathers said.

In the 1980s, Tudor had an exhibition at the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana — Mathers’ home state. Mathers’ mother, who sold antique clothing, volunteered at the exhibition, and she and Tudor became friends. The two women later became business partners, which led to The Jenny Wren press, a business that sold Tudor’s artwork, postcards and books that she illustrated.

During Mathers’ summer visits, Tudor painted watercolor portraits of him.“There was a charcoal one of me. I had to sit there forever. I was 8 years old,” Mathers said.

Tasha Tudor’s African Grey bird, Peggler, being served for dinner as a joke. Photo courtesy of Troy Mathers

Barefoot and dressed in 1830s style clothing, she spun wool and made candles, Mathers said. “She loved wearing dresses. We would go out to eat, and she was just so comfortable wearing these clothes,” he said.

Mathers remembered Tasha Tudor was very particular about gardening and living a preindustrial way of life. “She was hard-core frugal. She ate the eggs from her chickens and drank the milk from her goats,” Mathers said. “She didn’t try to own all the gadgets.”

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Vermont

Vermont knocks off Western New England 75-68

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5 hours ago

November 4, 2025

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Vermont knocks off Western New England 75-68

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Vermont

These Vermonters are about to lose their Medicare Advantage plans and they’re scrambling

Published

24 hours ago

November 3, 2025

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These Vermonters are about to lose their Medicare Advantage plans and they’re scrambling

Angela Myers doesn’t know what she’s going to do.

The 54-year-old from Chittenden County lives with a disability. When she needed better health insurance, she said her doctors recommended Vermont Blue Advantage, a type of Medicare provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield that could offer her extra benefits and reduced costs.

She’s been on the plan for five years, she said, and it covers all her frequent doctor visits and monthly prescriptions.

But she’s going to lose that insurance soon.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont announced Oct. 1 that it would drop Medicare Advantage coverage in 2026, leaving the thousands of Vermonters like Meyers scrambling to secure new plans before the turn of the year. Vermont Blue Advantage covers over 26,000 people in Vermont, the company told the Burlington Free Press, and has more complete coverage than traditional Medicare, including dental work and prescriptions.

The company, which is paid by the government to run the program, says it costs too much. The “Vermont Medicare Advantage market is unsustainable for Vermont Blue Advantage to be able to offer reasonably priced and affordable products to serve as an alternative to traditional Medicare coverage,” Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont said when announcing the plan.

That’s been the national trend, with Medicare Advantage plans whittled down across many states. But for a low-population place like Vermont, the disruption for people is magnified.

A big problem with choosing a new Medicare Advantage plan is that there just aren’t many offered in Vermont. The same day Vermont Blue Advantage announced its cut, UnitedHealthcare did the same. United, itself one of the largest purveyors of Medicare Advantage plans across the country, serves almost 8,000 Vermonters, the company told the Free Press.

Medicare Advantage plans in Vermont

As of September, over 51,600 Vermonters were insured by a Medicare Advantage plan, and over 168,000 people were eligible, government data shows.

Advantage plans are run by private companies but funded by the federal government. They are for people 65 and older or who have a disability. More than half of U.S. residents eligible for Medicare Advantage are insured under it, according to KFF, a national health care reporting and research outfit.

Vermonters skew under that trend at 34% for 2024, KFF reported. But the number has been rising. A decade prior, only 7% of eligible Vermonters used an Advantage plan.

Even so, the options are slimming. Insurance plans shuttering has become almost an annual tradition in Vermont. Two Advantage plans — operated by MVP and WellCare — folded this past January.

Come next year, the only option for those seeking an individual Medicare Advantage plan is Humana, which serves Bennington, Caledonia, Essex, Orange, Windam and Windsor counties, or less than half the counties in Vermont.

People losing health insurance feel ‘abandoned’

Larry Mindell of Williston said he and his wife signed up with Vermont Blue Advantage after MVP cancelled its coverage. He said they feel “abandoned” by the companies and worry this may only be the beginning of a sharper downturn.

“I say ‘abandon’ because that’s what it feels like, and it’s happening to us for the second year in a row,” Mindell said.

Mindell has been working with an insurance broker to find a new plan, but that’s not an option everyone has.

Some were able to be proactive in changing their plans. The Vermont Treasurer’s Office announced Sept. 11 that starting next year, retired teachers receiving health insurance from Vermont Blue Advantage will be covered by equivalent plans from HealthSpring.

The change will impact over 7,000 retirees and beneficiaries in Vermont, says the Treasurer’s Office. The decision came after Vermont Blue Advantage proposed a 50% premium increase in July, and it proved to be a good one as Blue Cross Blue Shield pulled the plan altogether just a few months later.

Other people were not prepared to lose their insurance.

Frankin County resident Barb Fichter has been living in Vermont since 2022 and said it took her a few years to find an Advantage plan she was happy with before choosing Blue Cross Blue Shield’s offering in January 2024.

Now, she’s back to where she started.

“It’s so disconcerting to wade through alternatives, and I fear I may just be on regular Medicare with no prescription drug coverage or dental coverage,” Fichter said. “I’m going to have to weigh out which things I’m going to have to give up because I can’t afford the costs or co-pays.”

When is Medicare open enrollment? Special enrollment if you’re losing coverage?

The annual open enrollment period for choosing new Medicare plans runs from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7. There is a special enrollment period for those who will be losing coverage, allowing them until March 4 to find a new plan.

But as the current plans end by Jan. 1, 2026, people will have a gap in coverage if they wait to sign up for a new one.

Sydney P. Hakes is the Burlington city reporter. Contact her at SHakes@gannett.com.

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Vermont

Vermont Yankee will be ’99 percent demolished’ by the end of the year

Published

2 days ago

November 2, 2025

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Vermont Yankee will be ’99 percent demolished’ by the end of the year

VERNON — The demolition of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will be “99 percent complete” by the end of the year, according to a recent estimate from the chief executive officer of Yankee’s owner, NorthStar Group Services.

Scott State, in a telephone interview from his home in Arizona, said that crews have been making good progress in this fall’s good weather, and the reactor building’s wall and interior would be down to the ground by Thanksgiving.

According to recent photographs of the reactor building, there are still concrete walls standing. At one point this fall, two large excavators, which had to be hoisted to the top of the reactor building by a super-large crane, were tearing the building apart, from the top down.

“We plan to have it down to ground level within the next four weeks,” he said.

According to the memorandum of understanding NorthStar has with the state of Vermont, it must remove all structures that are within four feet of ground level, and that will take until Christmas, State said.

The concrete is very thick in the foundation, about two to three feet thick. He estimated the foundation goes 40 to 50 feet into the ground, but the vast majority of it would be left in place.

The company has until 2030 to complete the decommissioning of the Yankee site, and has long said the job would be complete by the end of 2026, but that most work would be done by 2025.

State said all the concrete rubble from the reactor building is being stored on site, but will eventually be shipped to west Texas, at the low-level radioactive waste facility run by NorthStar’s partner, Waste Services.

After the reactor building’s demolition is complete, the concrete will be shipped over a six-month period, State said. He said there is only room for two rail cars at a time to be loaded at the Yankee site.

“Mid-summer, next fall, all that stuff will be gone,” he said.

NorthStar, which bought the Vermont Yankee plant from former owner Entergy Nuclear in January 2019, actually started decommissioning several months before the sale was completed and approved by state and federal regulators.

NorthStar’s plans called for immediately demolition, rather than putting the plant into what essentially is cold storage, the plan adopted by Entergy. Under that plan, no work would have been done at Yankee for decades.

State said that additional field work, site assessments, sampling, studies and reports will take up the rest of 2026, when the company will seek final approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

With the government shut down and continued understaffing at the NRC, State said that approval could take longer than originally expected.

Recent soil testing near the reactor building revealed contamination of PFAS or “forever chemicals,” at significantly above Vermont standards. That contamination is believed to have come from a fire at the plant’s electrical transformer in 2004, on the non-nuclear side of the plant.

The reactor building, which is the last major building left at the 140-acre site, was almost as big underground as it was above ground, State said. The reactor building, which housed the reactor core plus the spent fuel pool, was about five stories high.

The reactor building is located next to the storage site of the radioactive spent fuel from the 42 years the plant operated. The spent fuel is stored in giant concrete and steel casks, and it will remain after decommissioning is completed.

According to the state memorandum, the deep foundation may be left in place after testing shows it is clear of any radioactivity.

NorthStar agreed that the reactor foundation hole would not be filled with the rubbleized concrete from the demolition, but “clean fill,” State said, which will be trucked in to the Vernon site.

He said the other nuclear decommissioning project NorthStar is doing, Crystal River 3 in Florida, will use its rubble-ized concrete for fill, which State said is standard practice – but not in Vermont.

“We will not backfill until the NRC releases the site,” he said.

There are two large trust funds paying for the demolition and clean up work. The second, smaller fund will pay for site restoration. The larger $600 million fund was paid for by the utility customers of the original owner of Vermont Yankee, the Vermont Nuclear Power Corp.

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