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The Place I Call Home

This past summer, my husband and I moved to Corinth, VT, from one of those flat cities to the south. I began working as the Administrative Coordinator at Northern Woodlands in September, and have been busy adjusting to my new life ever since!

When we decided to make good on our threat to move to Vermont, we knew we were making a huge lifestyle change. There would be fewer lattes and more snow. I expected to spend more time in the yard, more time in the woods, and more time in the house doing whatever you do when you have more than two rooms to live in. I expected to spend much less time in traffic, and much more time mowing. All of this has proven to be true. What I did not expect was just how much there would be to learn and how many decisions there would be to make.

It turns out that there are several opinions on any given topic. If you let the milkweed grow in, you will have wonderful butterflies. If you cut your field twice per year, you will have lovely tall grass. With no milkweed. So, what about the butterflies?

On very wet mornings, our field looks like Scotland with brown and green waves gently curving up the hill to the neighbor’s road. It begs for livestock. Goats or sheep? One opinion is that goats are individualistically too smart and sheep are not so smart, but pretty friendly in their herd-like ways. Another opinion is simply that sheep are not so smart and goats are better. I like the friendly ones. Sheep look so peaceful, grazing the day away in their big fluffy coats. The world has plenty of individuals already.

To raise sheep, we’re told we would need guard animals, like llamas. Of course they’re herd animals, so you should have more than one. Or you could get alpacas instead. They’re smaller and spit less. Alpacas are reported to be neat and tidy, and they hum when they are content. Wikipedia says they’re gentle, elegant, inquisitive, intelligent and observant, so that would seem to cover for any shortcomings the sheep may have. And yes, it’s another herd.

The garden was full of radish and carrots because the pictures on the seed packets all offered something a little different. Scarlet Nantes! Danvers Half Long! French Breakfast Radish! The pictures were bright and promising. The seeds were microscopic and we planted them all. We ate a lot of radish. Now we know, pick one and move on to something else.

I have not figured out how to prune the four fruit trees that should have been pruned last spring, according to the previous homeowners. Someone lent us a book but it just scared me. Luckily, I can use the new Northern Woodlands publication, The Place You Call Home: A Guide to Caring for Your Land in Vermont, for guidance; page 6 has an excellent introduction to pruning fruit trees. The directions aren’t even scary.

So we definitely have more time at home. Who has time for anything else? I remind myself that the point is to be less stressed, to take this learning curve in stride. At the end of the day I take the dog up into the field for her bedtime walk. I am brave enough now to leave the flashlight behind and go most of the way up the hill in the dark. Then we turn and look at the sky, sometimes brightly lit by the moon, or packed with stars, or cloudy with dark blue streaks. The outline of the mountains reminds me why we are here. The air smells different every day, grassy, or crisp, or wet, or warm with fireplace smoke. It’s all stunning and mysterious and requires very few decisions. It’s a simple blessing and I know it will get us through. A few years from now when there is more of a routine to this life, I will still make these nightly walks up the hill. Who needs lattes when you have all this?

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