Category: Green Mountain Blog

Good morning all:

We have been here a week today and are getting pretty settled in- it helps when you move into a house that is already fully settled. We have tried not to mess it up too much The weather has been a mix- some days it has rained ferociously in the afternoon and some have been pretty hot and humid; the nights are always blissfully north woods cool. I’m off today for my first trip “abroad”- an overnight to Baltimore, out of Albany- which is a disconcerting two hour drive just to get on a plane

So –here are some first observations about living in what the neighbor calls “ the most socialist state in the country”:

• Larry is the neighbor and he is a preacher in Rutland. He raises chickens and mallards which hang out outside our door all day long and play with Tripod. He calls us sir and m’am and every night at sunset he bellows out “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” down the road . He and his family brought us a spaghetti and meatball cake for a welcome thought (yes- a real cake with spaghetti and meatballs on top- so you can have all your courses at once)
• There are apparently four miles of hiking trails per person living in Vermont. We have  an old logging road out back end of our property which is a boulder strewn trail that connects to the other side of our road a few miles up. We are about five miles from the Appalachian and Long trail entrance, which goes to a suspension bridge and gorge pretty quickly. We are also about five miles from White Rocks State Forrest area- which is a drop dead beauty of a hike down a hillside to a stream and wading pool sitting with huge white boulders.
• Mt. Holly sits at 1824 feet elevation – which is pretty high on the East coast; when we leave our drive and turn on to SR 103 in either direction- we are immediately surrounded by the Green mountains and the Adirondacks. When we tell people in the surrounding area we live in Mt. Holly- they nod knowingly and say “ ah, the snow belt”. Hmmm..
• Vermont is all about local and organic. All restaurants have chefs trained at the New England Culinary Institute-even hole in the wall dives. Restaurants are part of the “fresh network “ of locally sourced food and everyone is “Organic” (except maybe us and Larry down the road). Every town around seems to have a farmer’s market. Ours is in our hub of Belmont- about four miles away- and is on Saturday morning. There are about five stalls and ten people- but we bought organic and free range chicken and buffalo there. They seemed to not know what I wanted when I put my fingers pointing over my head and asked for “Ta-tonka”. About five miles down the road is a huge organic garden and roadside stand. We stopped yesterday and it was closed- but the spacey, Amish looking proprietor, Podge, was hanging out back and offered to pick us some fresh fixings from the garden. We got some stuff we’d never heard of and ate it. Turns out Podge is the great nephew of the eccentric founder of the local in-the-woods treatment center, spring Lake Ranch- which is also five miles down the road (getting the theme here?) and where Jenn aspires to be employed part time.
• Along the road to our house- there are houses selling all manner of weird products; one has a soft serve sign outside- so we will stop by to see if someone really has soft serve machine buzzing away in their living room- and maybe keeping the house cool
• Tripod has found a home in the barn where he sleeps in an old grain bin, and spends his days mostly hiding in the bushes outside our front door. He aspires to join Gracie and Nico inside and tries every chance he gets. He has befriended the flock of chickens and a wild red tabby cat- with whom he shares his daily feasts
• We live in a house that was occupied by and electricians’ widow- so we have tools hidden everywhere and the wiring is all done in an eccentric mad scientist fashion. There are three boxes of breakers spread out all throughout our four room basement. While Walter electrified, Karin apparently mowed, and she must have been a pioneer woman. It took Jenn and I together five hours to mow and trim the first time. We were exhausted, dehydrated and it looked like shit.
• On Monday nights- the local musicians come down from the hills to the library basement to jam on folk and bluesy music for three hours. I have joined them and been immediately labeled a rock and roll influence right off the bat; maybe because I had come from just hiking on the “A” trail- and had wild hair and stunk badly and stood up outside the seated music circle to roam and play.

Well- got to get ready to travel- so that is it for now. Hope all is well in your world. Love or like you all,

Stu

Subject: Finding Vermont

Just a quick update from the Green mountain state. After our harrowing last week of preparation (that included going down to the last day before we left to have our house closing in place and making 12 additional trips with loads of Jenn’s stuff AFTER we thought we were done, two broken down cars)- we were almost ready to leave at end of week when the three legged one, Tripod, disappeared for three days after Jenn tried to put a harness on him(he took off with the harness half on and flapping in the wind). By Friday night we had made plans to leave without him on Saturday- when he showed back up. We were able with Suzie’s help to get him into a carrier (much deceit) and actually get on the road only an hour late on Saturday morning. I have never seen two cars so full and with the car top carrier on the Jeep it could barely make it up the hills once we hit NY state. We did manage to have a beautiful day for driving- but it took forever with three cats in cages crying all the way – and one (Tripod) pooping all the way- which made it like driving for hours in a dairy cow field. By the time we got to Ryan and Lauren’s new place in Unadilla, NY we had gotten separated and my cell phone was dead –and my car charger broke. As an added amusement, the map quest I had was wrong- so I spent about a hour after Jenn arrived driving randomly through the Catskills trying to find their place- with the crying cat and shit filled car. Once there –we got Tripod into their contained garage and were able to have a nice dinner that Ry had prepared and fought to keep warm and fresh for us. On Sunday morning we got up to repack the Beverly Hillbillies caravan and hit the road- but Tripod was not planning on getting back in the car carrier and scratched the shit out of several of us with his overcompensated talons when we tried. Thus began an hour long chase by the four of us to trap him in the garage, force him into a blanket and then get him shove into the carrier….we left late. Once we hit the road we had another beautiful day and hit Vermont by noon – with only more crying and Tripod shit to deal with. I actually made it to the walk – through to meet the realtor only ten minutes late (after getting separated and a little lost again)- and then we waited for Jenn- who had gotten snared in a speed trap on fourth of July weekend (Welcome to Vermont!)

What a journey.. made us really wonder if we should be doing this- but then we walked through the house and WOW…it was like something out of a fable. Immaculate throughout, every detail attended to, and twice as much stuff left as we expected . Karin took no furniture at all- not even the antique cedar chests. She left shelve of books and music, big screen TV, stereo, her late husband’s antique clocks, closets of freshly pressed sheets and towels, cabinets of really nice dishes. We were amazed and really wondered why we brought anything besides our clothes. We could really have just moved in and done nothing. And the grounds…perennial gardens in bloom everywhere, the whole place beautifully landscaped, the pond gurgling, the house looking like it emerged new from the 1860’s. It was actually overwhelming (Did I mention that every bed in the place was tightly made with all new bedding Karin went out and bought?)

The walk through itself was uneventful. We wound up leaving the Jeep there- car top carrier and all – and got Tripod from the carrier into a dog cage we had schlepped all the way on Jenn’s roof (after we decided the harness was not much of an idea for containing him en route until we moved in). So we left him in the cage in the barn with all his supplies for two days and headed down to our friends Connie and Georges’ B&B up in Brookfield- about an hour and a half away. It felt like coming home after the last few weeks. Spent a nice night being wined and dined and in our own little apartment we have stayed in for 13 years in the middle of this village that time left behind. Today- we recover a bit and tomorrow morning we head up for the closing at 11 and the move in. Then …we start the next phase of the adventure.

Beverly hillbillies pictures are attached. Tomorrow we are going to take pix of all of the house before we move our stuff in- to capture it in its pristine moment. Will send a Shutterfly with these in a few days.

Love,

Dad, Cousin/Uncle, Stu