This was a momentous week. But first things first. It’s October!!! My favorite month of the year has arrived! And it is everything you would expect… in Vermont, that is. The leaves are turning and, yes, it really is stunning. So for you less fortunate souls who live in, say, Texas, allow me to take you on a vicarious leaf peeping trip through Vermont.
To ring in my favorite month- because I couldn’t quite wait until last Tuesday- we went on an all day excursion the Saturday before last. Our day started with coffee, of course, at one of our favorite new coffee shops, the Kinder Way Coffeehouse in Castleton. We now have a favorite coffee shop on both sides of the Green Mountains (east side is Sandy’s Books and Bakery for inquiring minds)! What we love about Kinder Way, besides the excellent coffee, is the spirit of the place. The owners, Mark and Erika Gutel, run this place on love. With gentle reminders from Erika, Mark says “I don’t have to save the world, I just have to give them a place to rest for a bit.” After a bit of prodding, we discovered that they also run a nonprofit farm, Kinder Way Farm Sanctuary, which serves as a refuge for rescued farm animals. On this particular visit, Mark tells me “I’m so glad you two are in Vermont permanently now. You are in the right place. We are likeminded and we need to work together. We don’t have much time.” He is right. We have found kindred folk in the Gutels and we are looking forward to all that might lead to.
From there it was onto our main mission for the day: apple picking. Now let me just say that if you have only ever gotten an apple from a store, that’s a tragedy. Please put apple picking on you bucket list and get to it! We chose to try Boyers Orchard & Cider Mill, a family owned orchard in Monkton. The apple picking greeter (for lack of a better title) was the sister of the owner, an elderly Pre-K teacher who works there on the weekends during apple picking season. She oriented us as to what and where the multiple apple varieties were, making sure that we understood we were to taste test apples from any and every tree before we made our selections. Oh and we did! With a bag full of apples in hand we added their homemade apple cider and apple cider donuts to our spoils as the owner, sister of the aforementioned greeter, checked us out. Then we went over to their tasting room to try out the alcoholic versions of their apple cider as well as the red and white wines that they make from their on site vineyard. Yum! We made another friend in the taste testing lady (for lack of a better title) in the process. While she wasn’t related to the owner, you still got the sense that it was one big happy, messy family operation.
Apple mission accomplished, we followed the suggestion of the taste testing lady and headed over the mountains, leaf-peeping along the way, to continue our taste testing at Mad River Taste Place in Waitsfield. The purpose of this place is to help small, local food and drink producers get their products to market. We sampled way too many Vermont artisan cheeses and then washed it down – so to speak – with samplings of Mad River Distillers rum and whiskey. Realizing we had yet to eat anything resembling a meal (and having consumed one too many alcoholic samples), we crossed the parking lot toward Worthy Burger Too to share a locally, responsibly sourced craft burger. So good.
En route we couldn’t help getting drawn into a local clothing shop called Product Think Tank. With a name like that, we were instantly intrigued. The owner, Annemarie Furey, beckoned us in as we started peppering her with questions. It turns out that she left the fashion industry because frankly she just couldn’t stomach it anymore. She started her own company to replicate the “farm to table” concept in the clothing industry. For one, her clothes are made with only natural fibers to model the elimination of petrochemical-based synthetic fibers (think polyester, nylon, acrylic, spandex, etc.) from our clothes. If you don’t know this already, petrochemical-based synthetic fibers contain not only toxic chemicals, but they are also non-biodegradable. In our fast fashion culture in which we turn over our (relatively cheap) wardrobe at breathtaking speeds, toxic landfills and environmental degradation are the result, nevermind whatever it is doing to you. Annemarie further utilizes family owned farms in democratic countries to grow and produce her clothing, which is made to last for life. Shannon and I picked up a few sweaters, because guess what folks… sweater weather has arrived in Vermont!
We spent the following day up at our mountain retreat, which we unfortunately neglected all summer. I have missed this place! I am happy to report that everything was in good shape. Shannon, Finny, Greta and I hiked “our” 40 acre forest to enjoy the fall colors while continuing the process of getting to know the place. Ultimately we will co-create a thriving ecology, humans included, alongside the genius of the mountain, the forest and all of the living forms that make up the community (ecosystem) of this place. On a related topic, I am currently reading The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (link to our local Northshire Bookstore, not Amazon). This is a must read if we are to understand (and save) the world in which we live.
So that rounded out our celebration of the arrival of October. Of course we have celebrated with fall foods galore all week: apple cider, apple cider donuts, homemade apple compote, apple crumble with vanilla ice cream, homemade pumpkin muffins, butternut squash ravioli, and acorn squash soup- all from locally sourced ingredients. There is something about fall, yes, but you aren’t really experiencing it if your culinary connection is coming through a pumpkin spiced latte collected at the Starbucks drive-thru. This is why we moved home to Vermont:
1/2 natural ecology + 1/2 real community = 1 place that has a snowball’s chance in hell of not just surviving, but thriving
I am not advocating that everyone move to Vermont. What I am advocating is that, first of all, you discover the natural ecology of the place in which you live and then find the people who are doing such amazing things as I described above. Form a community with these fearless people who are putting themselves out there, daring to change the course of humanity. If you have an amazing idea of your own, do it. Go for it now. Don’t wait. There is no time for that. Find what, where and who you love and support it with everything you got. You will never, ever regret such a decision.
All that said, I started by saying that this was a momentous week for us. It was. We sold our house in Houston. As I have mentioned in a previous post back in the spring, we had painstakingly poured love into the renovation of what had been my home for twenty years, where I had raised my kids, and had been Shannon’s home for ten years. We put way more money into it than was advisable, knowing that we would be selling and moving to Vermont in the not too distant future. We had completely transformed the energy of the place from where it was when I first purchased it. I had always envisioned this as a gift to the next resident(s) of our beloved home, that had cared for us all so well, rollercoaster ride as it was. I didn’t get the sense that the first potential buyer was the right guy. Fortunately (in retrospect), he backed out. The next buyer made me so incredibly happy. While I haven’t met her, what I do know is that she is a nurse and a caregiver. I knew instantly that she was the one… the one who we had done it all for. I’ll never know her story, but I trust that she will be well cared for herself, at least by this house, from here on out.
As for us, I am going to say words that I never imaged I would be able to say. We are debt free. No car debt. No student loan debt. No mortgage. Nothing. At least not for the moment. We will enjoy just a small respite. Then we will be right back at it… renovating Shannon’s childhood home that has cared for her family so well and brought so much joy over the years. We will overhaul it, while saving everything we can, in order to bring it into alignment with the lake ecology and world that we love so much. That means net zero energy performance. That means longterm durability. That means responsibly sourced and local materials to the degree possible. That means a new septic system, drainage curtain, and raingardens to keep our human wastes from polluting the lake. And, yes, it means a super comfortable and cool home to host our wide community of friends and family. It’s coming, folks. Just give us this winter to rest and then probably a few years of sweat, love, help from our friends, and no doubt some tears! It will be an expensive endeavor, yes. We will go back into debt to accomplish it. However, it is not nearly as expensive or as soul crushing as the alternative of watching the planet, humans, and other species laid to waste. We can do this, one house, one community at a time, if we all work together. The cost is worth it. We are worth it. Every human and every species is worth it.