Eating Vermont Style

Eating Vermont
Living in Vermont has shown all of us how amazing it can be to live in a verdant land. There are about 8 apple trees on the property (including one “Papple” tree which is a pear tree that cross pollinated with its neighboring apple tree) so we have apples coming out our ears! We have been making apple cider every weekend and drink nothing but that, water and milk. We have apples for snacks, apple sauce is a fun kid project and there have been many apple pies, apple crisps and apple cobblers! (We will welcome the change to mangos and bananas when we head south!). The garden has been producing all fall thanks to the unusually warm weather we’ve had here (global warming anyone?!). Aside from a splurge on broccoli now and then we have been making salads solely from the backyard – the kids love the process of harvesting the food and then revisiting it at the dinner table. We buy eggs from a neighbor down the hill who usually throws in a few purple potatoes because it thrills the kids so much. Since there are actually still working dairies in Vermont you can buy local milk and cheese at most stores and the local store sells beef from our neighboring farmers whose kids Dave went to school with. The kids usually make bread with their Meme once a week. There is a diner outside of Woodstock about 15 miles away which was mentioned in Barbara Kingsolver’s new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” called the Farmers Diner which is typical diner fare but primarily with local ingredients – and its not any more expensive than the Red Rock Diner in Cdale!! . It is really inspiring how seriously Vermonters take the idea of eating locally and how truly easy it is here. Inspires me to plant a better garden next year in Carbondale but unfortunately we will be getting a very late start!!

September in Vermont

Toby and Cassidy in the cornfield and with their new friend Hannah Smith in the leaf pile.

Highlights of September include: going to the Montshire science museum (LOTS!), having a harvest party with cider pressing, doughnut bobbing, pumpkin carving (check out our awesome scarecrow. . . ). Shannon started working for Lyme Timber in Hanover NH and rides her bike the 20 hilly miles to work about once a week (dodging wild turkeys!). Dave visiting the White Mountain School, Gould Academy, KUA, the Mountain School and climbed in North Conway with his new climbing partner Bob. Toby has made a friend who lives down the hill, a 1st grader named Micah. Cassidy and Toby play really well together and share a friend - Hannah, our friend Tao's daughter, who is 6 and is in half day kindergarten and comes over usually once a week.

to Vermont then visiting Rochester

It has been SOO long since we have written, largely because we now have only a dial-up connection. I now need to go back and reconstruct the last month and I’ll start where we left off. We left Maine a few days after labor day weekend just as the weather started getting chillier. The three hour drive to Vermont seemed like forever because Cassidy claimed to be “getting’ car sick” half the time which we believe means she is “sick” of being in the car rather than any real malady!! We were very happy to arrive here and see Meme (Dave’s mom Penny). Her garden was in full bloom and we were able to have fresh lettuce, tomatoes, basil, parsley, string beans and zucchini whenever we wanted. Her apple trees were also fully loaded but more of that in the next post!! Our original plan was to head to Cape Cod two days later to see the Stanton cousins but we decided everyone just needed to stay put. So we stayed in VT and Penny went to the Cape. We got settled in, Toby sleeps in a little cubby bed in the upstairs hall and Cassidy is in her Auntie Q’s (Dave’s sister) bedroom. The house, for those of you who haven’t had the chance to visit, is a cobbled together little 200 year old farm house perched on the top of a hill above the “village” of East Barnard (184 residents or something like that!). She has about 7 acres of garden, mowed grass, hayfields, apple trees and forest and a fabulous view of the surrounding hillsides. It definitely feels like someplace you could settle in and fend for yourself if the rest of the world goes haywire. We can call up a neighbor to order some local beef or walk over the field to another neighbors to buy fresh eggs ($2/dozen!).

Wednesday morning we headed to Rochester NY to see the Korfmacher cousins and do all the fun city stuff they told us about. Given that the drive was 6 hours the kids did amazingly well. We left early planning on a couple long stops but they were so excited to see their cousins they only let us stop once at a playground we passed en route. We arrived just as Ty and Stefan were done with school so we had lots of play time at their big beautiful house. They have an awesome rope swing and a zip line and great sidewalk loops for bike riding so there was lots to do. The big draw as far as Toby was concerned was Rochester’s National Museum of Play (Strong Museum). It is huge and by far the best kids museum I’ve ever been to. In addition to great exhibits of every variety they have historical exhibits of toys from the last two centuries. The big hits were – the butterfly garden (indoors with 30 varieties that land on you), adventures in storyland, making wizard hats, crowns, design your own bugs, miniature pirates, treasure chests etc, dance dance revolution (toby loved but never really figured out!) and a kid sized grocery store. The next day we hit up the Rochester zoo and then back to the Strong museum with my kids who would have moved in there if they could. Saturday got chilly but we went to watch Katrina play soccer (I almost got enlisted to play but a sub showed up and saved me from playing in my Capri pants and running shoes that didn’t fit!) and the kids rode bikes around. We decided to drive at night rather than deal with our recalcitrant travelers so we left after an early dinner, watched one video in the car, stopped for a potty break and put pj’s on the kids and crossed our fingers. Cassidy through a big but short fit until Dave squeezed into the backseat between them and they both fell asleep on his shoulders (very cute). So much for actually talking to each other in the car while they slept!! The next day was the perfect cool Vermont day and we went to the Tunbridge World’s Fair – a huge country fair about a half hour away with everything from antique motorcycle racing to historic reenactments, prize oxen raised by Penny’s old students, a 700 pound pumpkin raised by a class of pre-schoolers, pig racing, ferris wheel (kids and I rode), cotton candy, fried dough (with maple butter!!) and everything in between. We actually saw the only two families around our age that we knew at that point at the fair (among easily several thousand fair goers!) And the next day Shannon started work at Lyme Timber in Hanover!! Phew … more to follow when I can download some photos.

To the Coast!

Today is Labor Day and we are thinking of all of you as school probably starts up for most (who havent already started) tomorrow. Temperatures here are cooling down and letting us know that our time in Maine is coming to a close. We will head to Vermont to live with Dave's mom on Wednesday and sadly say goodbye to the Lake house and summer fun. Labor Day weather here was great and we did a lot of swimming and sailing with my parents.

Last week we had a great treat - meeting up with our Carbondale friends the Gavettes in Bath Maine at the house they rented. Toby and Cassidy were ecstatic to be with their two best friends Levi and Gretta again and we all had a blast reconnecting. Lori is on sabattical from CRMS as well so we all bonded over the wonderful but odd limbo we all find oursevles in for this hiatus. We spent two full days at Popham beach (where the Costler flick "Message in a bottle" was filmed") with perfect beach weather. Toby learned to boogie board and was so into the ocean that we had to drag him home sand drenched at the end of the day. He got pummeled so hard by one wave that he came up with a full sand helmet but went right back out for more. Cassidy tried it to, but just on the little waves and had fun. Their house was on a small pond and a few minutes from Dam Cove where the kids slipped in the mud and caught hermit crabs. The third day we were there the 8 of us rented sea kayaks and explored around and then we took our kids to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath - lots of cool ship models (cassidy thought it all smelled bad :) ). Then we headed south to Gorham Maine to see our good friend from Bowdoin, Renate and her husband Sean and kids Madeleine and Alex (10 and 8). Toby and Alex bonded hard over legos and Madeleine pulled out all her Barbies and horses for Cassidy so both kids were in heaven!! Finally back to Bethel with so very tired kids!!

Next post will come from Vermont!!! Hope you are all doing well. Drop us a comment so we know if people are reading these or not :)

Shannon, Dave, Toby and Cassidy

Canoe Camping

Our latest adventure was a canoe camping trip on Lake Mooselookmeguntic in western Maine with Nana, Pop and the Korfmachers (Shannon's sister Katrina, husband Karl and boys Stefan (8) and Ty (10). We had perfect weather for the 30 minute canoe to our campsites on Students Island. Once there we played in the water, fished, learned Karate from the oldest cousin, played games, chopped wood, took hikes and generally adventured around. Everyone had a fabulous time, no rain, no bugs (only problem was a late night squirrel assault the last night!). Toby says his highlight was "the WHOLE THING!" and Cassidy's was making Fairy Houses (the Fairy's left the kids thank you notes! The kids all got along well but predictably started squabbling when we returned home from the trip. Cousins leave Wed and we head to the coast to visit our friends from Carbondale, the Gavettes!!

Maine at Last

We are now living in Bethel Maine on Songo Pond (in Colorado it would be called a lake but Yanks are masters of understatement). The weather has been alternating between gorgeous, warm and sunny and pouring rain and so far none of the humid heat you often get in the summer here. We have been doing lots of boating, swimming, blueberry picking, biking and hiking. We had a great outing with my parents the other day, Dave and I biked to Step Falls and kids and grandparents drove there (18 miles). Step Falls is a Nature Conservancy Preserve with a creek that forms cool pools with natural rock slides flowing in to them. The water is frigid but it is worth it to take a slide, splash in and jump out again (see photo of Nana and Cass about to take the plunge). Nana and Pop then rode home (downhill :)) and we drove with the kids stopping to buy a homemade raspberry pie from a self serve roadside kiosk and again to buy 25 cent creamsicles from a little store - very Maine. The highlight of the week for Toby and Dave was a trip to the venerable Fenway Park to see the Red Sox in action against the Devil Rays. Toby outfitted himself for the big day (the night before!) in his Sox outfit - blue shorts, blue Sox shirt, Sox hat and then asked me - "do we have something I could paint my face blue with and put a red B on my face"? Though the Sox lost, it was a great game and he loved the whole Fenway experience with Meme and Dave's Aunt Glee (another rabid Sox fan) - Fenway Frank, blue cotton candy, massive pretzel etc (see photo ). My sister and family arrive tomorrow night and our kids cant wait. They are a little starved for playmates.
S

The Road Trip

We are now two plus weeks into our big family adventure and are having a blast. We headed out from Colorado on August 1st in two batallions - the kids and meme/Penny/grandma flew to Boston from Aspen and Dave and Shannon started driving east. We took I-70 and pretty much blasted through to reunite with the kids as fast as possible. We did bring our bikes and stopped each day of the drive to ride. I had done some internet research and found some cool rail-to-trail conversion rides to do which made things much more interesting. There were no such trails in Nebraska so our first day we just pulled off of I-70 and road through rolling farmlands for an hour and half then raced the storm clouds back to our car, pulling away just as the rain hit! In addition to getting in rides, our other goal for the drive was to not eat at any chain restaraunts. This proved challenging in Nebraska because by the time our bodies decided we were hungry, the change in time zone meant that everything in the towns were closed. Instead of caving in so early in our trip, we stopped at a small town grocery store, got local produce and had a very healthy dinner as we sped along the highway!
After a night in Lincoln Nebraska we were on the road again, this time stopping just before Des Moines Iowa to ride on the Raccoon River Trail. from Redfield. This trail was a little oasis of shade and habitat surrounded by the ubiquitous corn fields of the midwest. We finished up with a dip in the river then a great lunch at the "Dairy Shoppe" - $3 hamburgers anyone?! We highly recommend the rest areas on I-70 in Iowa and Nebraska, shade, playgrounds and Wi-Fi- access, great spot for a picnic dinner that night then on past Chicago to spend the night in Howe Indiana. Our goal the next night was dinner at my sister's house in Rochester NY so we were out again early, this time stopping in Ashtabula, Ohio for another rail trail ride (hot and HUMID and unfortunately no river to dip in but very pretty trail that was mostly shady). The highway was no longer fun with tolls to pay and traffic to contend with so we were happy to arrive in Rochester and see the Korfmachers and their new house. We didn't have nearly enough time to hang with Katrina and family but the mom sensor was kicking in hard and I needed to see my kids!!! We took off the next morning at 10 and were in Andover by 4:30 - where we were greated by the clamourous chords of the "Wild Beavers" a new eclectic band featuring Pop on the accordian, Nana on cello, Cassidy on piano and Toby on the guitar!!! The kids had been on their absolute best behavior for the plane flight with Meme and the following three days with my parents. They had been to the beach, the aquarium, the swan boats, the library and local trails -slept well, ate well, said their pleases and thank yous and generally charmed everyone. So of course, they immediately fell apart when we came on the scene :)! After a visit with my aunt and uncle the next morning we finally headed out as the four of us to my parents lake house in Bethel Maine - the first real leg togethe as the "meyer family travelers" (or perhaps now to be renamed the "Wild Beavers"??. Next post I will update on our time so far in Maine.
Shannon