I walked down our dirt road in the cool of the morning, breathing in the heavy summer fragrance of ferns and blackberries. And…cows. Suddenly I smelled cows. Not the strong manury barn smell, but that distinct cow breath smell. And there they were, crowded up into the shade of a big maple tree. Cows…my first…
I walked crosslots, feeling giddy and free after weeks of recovery from a traumatic injury, that damaged not just my hand, but my sense of independence. Took some time to get past that fragile state, where sudden bouts of crying and startled jumpiness prevailed. Alone I went down across the field, held my shoes high…
“Look at this big crack!”, I said to the boys. It extended clear across the pond. “Never come down here without a big person,” I admonished, many times. We scribed out a Fox and Geese pattern while David plowed off a hockey rink. In our attic is a pile of skates, size small, double runner, on…
And the snow conditions are…variable! Yesterday we worked in the woods, in a steady rain. Each branch, each twig was frosted in ice. I floundered a bit in the mushy snow, well, alright, I actually went down face first twice. Today was different, as the crust was hard and beautifully shiny. The boys dove headfirst,…
Calling All Vermonters! In conjunction with the Governor’s Tree Tapping, February 28, 2017, at Silloway Maple in Randolph Center, there will be a maple specialty foods contest open to Vermont residents. We hope to see how cooks from all around Vermont use our favorite agricultural product, maple syrup, in their cooking. We are excited to…
Excerpt from A Farm Wife’s Journal When I was 27, I married a dairy farmer and moved to northern Vermont. Dan leased a farm there, and we lived up back of the barn in a trailer. The winters in Greensboro are cold and snowy, but I was young enough to be tickled at the sight…
A farmer, a maple sugarmaker, a homemaker, a mother…common, ordinary, rather humble job titles to many. Little do they know that I walked to work today (looking over sap lines in the woods), on a royal jeweled carpet. Like a child, I picked up the most beautiful until my hands could hold no more. A…
My entire life has been spent in the sugarwoods, one way or another. As a child, riding always on the gathering sled or trailer, hanging on for dear life, mittens soaked with sap slopping up out of the filter, and hours in the sugarhouse while Dad boiled. He gave us tastes of hot, fresh syrup,…
I was musing about mowing lawns next summer, then talking about going to the sugarwoods, when Paul, scowling, said,”Why can’t you just walk on the road, like the other ladies?” He thinks I should be more careful. And he’s right, I’ve had some ankle trouble. This morning I thought about walking, nicely, on the road,…
Crosslots-itis. A day in the sugarwoods, and I’ve got a case of it. One of the woods stands on a nearly vertical plane, with one main line running up the center, and others coming off it to the sides, horizontally across the mountain. The smaller lines that I was working on go up, from tree to…
