Sarah Harris, NCPR

It’s pouring rain at the Burlington waterfront. But that doesn’t stop about 20 people from coming to watch the launch of Lake Champlain’s newest service boat.

It’s called Champlain’s Ark. And its job isn’t pretty: hauling and disposing human waste so boaters don’t empty their tanks directly into the lake.

A Massachusetts company wants to build an underwater transmission line from Plattsburgh to Burlington, Vt. that could give New York energy producers access to a new market.

Anbaric Transmission hopes to build an underwater line beneath Lake Champlain that could deliver 400 megawatts of wind and hydropower generated in northern New York to New England.

Most of the time, Eric Andrus is a beef and rice farmer. But lately, he’s learning to be a boat builder. On this day, he’s in the barn, sanding the hull of a big wooden barge.

“We’re about to apply the second layer of plywood,” Andrus says.

Andrus lives in Ferrisburg, Vt., near Lake Champlain. This fall, he plans to load up the boat with potatoes, grains, honey, apples, beans, and maple syrup, all produced in the Champlain Valley, and sail to markets further south. It’s called the Vermont Sail Freight project.

Dairy farms in Vermont and northern New York have faced a major labor shortage, which means that migrant laborers from Mexico and Guatemala are now milking many of the region's cows.

Farm country here is not an easy place to be a migrant worker: It's rural, hard to get around, and there's not a big Latino population. But a new law means that migrant workers in Vermont will soon be able to drive legally.

Erica and Les Goodman live on a stunning Adirondack foothill near Fort Ann, that happen's to be Erica's childhood home. The valley below is just starting to turn green, and the Green Mountains are hazy in the distance.

Right now, the field around there house is just grass and brush, but pretty soon, it’ll be covered by towering hops.

"When I dream about it," says Erica, "I’m dreaming of different types of beer we’ll be brewing based on different family history involved."