HIATUS IN VERMONT

the best laid plans... sometimes lay down.

our van, retrofitted for mild & eternal september weather, harbored dreams of winter. how were we to know? sometimes we follow the bearings of somebody else's compass. the best thing to do, is ride along and get some warm socks.

short story is, instead of south, we went due north and threw an axle.

so we left the van in the hands of my great-uncle's mechanic and spent a couple months wandering the Vermont backwoods. as of the 20's, this state was clear-cut and pastured with sheep. the backwoods wanderer will find all the evidence they need the world grows back.

along a ridge of young softwoods, we would follow the 400 year old stately procession of property maples that three of us couldn't get our arms around. old chimneys and foundations loom up in the prickers, and an old logging town visible only in the cider apples that lined the old main street. a postal code, gone to seed.

larger wild areas, taller and broader ones, don't have the sense of recovery that New England does. we need wilderness. but we also need places where you can see how people might fit into the picture, faulty though we are and slow to learn. Vermont is a good tonic for spasms of ecological despair. the Northeast Kingdom is best of all for that.

the Kingdom is kind of like Down-East Maine. a sort of stoic and absurd sovereign republic where there's no reason to be if you're not, and no reason to leave if you're there.

we left the woods for a farm up here. the cold fronts come skidding off Lake Camplaign, just barely clear the Green Mountains, and sit in our laps all winter. just us (and five hundred chickens). more about that in a bit. happy holidays, and i hope you're as snug as i am in this little farmhouse on a hill.