Winter in Vermont

(Just want to say that I'm celebrating ... this is my 100th posting.)

Winter around here can feel like it's six months long--mid-October to mid-April.  At least that's when I keep the snow shovel out by the front door.  (Early May has even produced snow a time or two.)  So what's with that!  Well, it does draw those visitors who enjoy winter sports and that's obviously an economic plus, though for those of us who live here (and, I might add, aren't winter sports enthusiasts), the season can get a bit long.  Especially since I abandon my regular walking until there's no hint of ice.

But, of course, a snowfall is beguilingly beautiful.  The neighborhood is enveloped in a lovely silence ... until a deep rumble and flashing light announce the approach of the town plow that shoves aside the accumulation, clearing the road but (thus) also clogging our drives and walkways.  But soon enough our individually hired plows arrive and clear that away too. 

The neighbors' hired plow man clearing their drive.

An April storm.

A hand-shoveled walk.

Then there's the changing light as the days lengthen ... the persistent ploop-ploop of melting snow dripping off the roof ... the beginning of sugaring and mud season.

Besides winter sports, visitors also come for our anachronistic feel.  Our lack of billboards, quaint markets, church-steepled villages, and two-lane roads, some not paved.

One of those unpaved roads

I recently read a nice piece by Alistair Cooke about his 1951 visit to the village of Newfane where the inn lies just across the street from the court house which then housed the jail.  "Newfane has kept up its habit of feeding its prisoners from the inn, and since the inn serves the best food around here, it's sometimes hard to get the inmates out of jail.  Theodore Roosevelt said he would like to retire here, commit some 'mild crime' and eat his way through a cheerful old age."*

Vermont has the problem of staying anachronistic enough to charm its visitors but also needing to keep up with the times.  So maple sugaring now uses plastic tubing to tap the trees--alas, for those of us who loved to see the old bucket method.  But either way, it's a sign of spring.

Looks like a holding tank for the maple sap.  You can see the blue tubing leading into it.

*From Outsiders Inside Vermont, Three Centuries of Visitors' Viewpoints on the Green Mountain State, edited by T. D. Seymour Bassett, p.121.