Foggy Ridge Dispatch: October 28, 2024
Presidential signs. Wendell Berry. Fog. Snow. Brisk-weather bicycle rides. Overalls that used to be pink.
Here are the things of note from last week (October 21-27).
Our Harris-Walz sign finally arrived, and barely a moment too soon. The post sometimes takes its sweet time here in the Northeast Kingdom but it usually brings good things - and this is, of course no exception.
The last leaves finally blew off of the birch tree in front of the house. It’s still not properly stick season, but that’s always a sign that we’re on the cusp. Also, I’m sure this photo is a decent explanation of why this column within To Be a Good Vermonter is called “Foggy Ridge Dispatch”. The mist rolling off of our creek and the adjacent Moose and Passumpsic Rivers creates such a dense fog at some times of year that you can hardly see your mailbox before 9am - truly a luminous thing to see each morning.
A friend gifted me a pair of insulated Carhartt coveralls a while back…but they were pink. Some pink is great - this pink was not. So I stripped that dye in preparation for turning them nice dark teal. My hope is that these puppies will help keep me warm during lambing season this year, as I’ll be helping some local friends with lambing to learn more about that impressive, stressful art before we bring home a microflock of our own in the not-so-distant future. (And please don’t judge our slightly scummy 1970s laundry room - renovation coming soon!)
My wonderful husband was away all week - and as a one-car family, that meant me enjoying some brisk (32°) bicycle rides down the ridge and into town. When you need a haircut, sometimes it just can’t wait a day longer.
I read The Farm by Wendell Berry - an American treasure (both the book and the writer). There is an unbelievable abundance of truth, wisdom, and feeling between those small covers. I’d recommend it to anyone who has ever been in love with a place, especially a farm.
Finally, just last night, we had our first snow of the season. It’s come a couple of weeks earlier than last year and to me, that’s a good sign. As a Southerner, I used to think that I hated winter. Turns out, I just hated a purposeless winter - winters where every thing, every activity, every aspect of culture was exactly the same as the rest of the year…except it was just cold. Such is not the case in Vermont. For Vermonters, winter is a thing - and it has become a thing I love. A -20° day? Bring it on. Multi-mile snowshoeing across new terrain? Yes please. To be outside in Northeast winter, breathing that brisk air, in pure wonderment at the white, dazzling, utterly serene world all around you…I’m not religious, but if holy spectacles exist (and they do), Vermont winter is one of them.
That’s all for this edition of Foggy Ridge Dispatch, friends. Thank you so much for reading. And if you’re a fellow rural resident that has a unique way of archiving the small things that bring you joy each week, I hope you’ll share them.