What to do during Mud Season

Go for a drive. Off one of Vermont's Scenic Byways, between routes 7 and 30, lies the tiny town of Whiting Depot. It exists primarily because the railroad crosses Otter Creek there, and at one time it had at least two factories. One of them is now a grain storage facility and farm store; the other is just a decaying limestone foundation and chimney hidden back in the puckerbrush. Now the town's main features are a small church on a knoll overlooking the former factory, and one truly dead-man's-curve corner that winds around a honey locust tree, so slow down!
 

Here's the view looking east towards route 7. This farm keeps goats.

The road through Whiting Depot winds through the edge of the Great Swamp. The swamp is lovely any time of year, but never more so than at dawn in the spring. It's one of the first places to see red-winged blackbirds on their return, with their celebratory "curdle-WHEE" call...

... Actually "celebratory" is a bit too anthropomorphic. I think they sound relieved that winter's over, but they're probably just shouting, "This is MY tree, MY woman, STAY AWAY!"

Mud Season is here

Winter hung on as long as it could, but mud season has started. The light is changing.

Down at our elevation, we're developing wallows. The driveway's "greasy" -- bring your hip boots!

Goodnight, winter. See you again next year.

Spring skiing!

Believe it or not, April can be a great time for skiing in Vermont. Killington makes so much snow that it typically lasts well into May! And good sugaring weather = good spring skiing weather. That is, the same conditions that make the sweet sap begin to rise in the maples -- freezing temperatures at night, with warm days -- make the snow corn up. But there's no point getting up super-early to catch the first run, because the slopes will be frozen solid until 10 or so. Peak hours for optimal spring conditions are roughly 11 to 3, depending on the weather. Before 11, the snow's too icy; after 3, it's too sloppy. (Once it gets into the 60s during the day and you can ski in shorts and a T-shirt, all bets are off -- except that you need really strong knees and ankles!)

I went to the Middlebury College Snow Bowl today because I knew it wouldn't be crowded. Got there early, to find midwinter conditions: lots of snow!

How to get here

The Moose and Squirrel has no sign, but you can't miss us -- we're right under the big "X."

Jeezum Cronuts

So, we've decided to learn how to make cronuts. It doesn't really look all that hard.

Here in Vermont (and in upstate New York, I've recently learned), when people want to cuss politely, they say "Jeezum Crow!"

So we really really want to call our new pastry endeavor Jeezum Cronuts, but we're afraid we might get sued.

A Walk in Wheelerville

Went for a walk down Wheelerville last week.

Wheelerville Road is a dirt road nearby that winds along Brewer's Brook for about 9 miles through city and state forests and comes out, finally, near the scout camp in the hills above Rutland.

As kids, my siblings and I rode our horses here. There weren't many houses on the road at that time, and only one or two were used year-round. Some 40 years later, there are probably 10 new places--most of them set back off the road far enough that you might miss them altogether if you weren't looking.
















I don't know who the Wheelers were that gave the area its name, but I like to imagine they were brewers who lived in the one 1800s farmhouse on the road, which has a tidy lawn and used to have a concrete dam that held back enough water to make a good-sized pond (and a small gorge downstream). 

They must have held wonderful parties before Prohibition shut them down!

When Tropical Storm Irene came through, the surrounding mountains received nearly a foot of rain for several hours and shed all the water that fell on that side of the hills into Wheelerville. The dam and its pond vanished, along with much of the road. Then the water roared on down to Route 4 and washed away about a mile of the highway, too. Huge stretches of the Wheelerville roadbed and many bridges were washed out and had to be rebuilt, and a number of footbridges are probably gone for good because the old stone footings on which they were constructed also washed out. The riverbed is still raw. But most of the devastation is still hidden under the snow, and where the road wanders away from the brook it looks just like it did when I was a kid.

Wheelerville is particularly popular during foliage season, but the locals use it year round. It's not super hilly, so it's popular with cyclists too. The Long and Appalachian Trails cross the Wheelerville Road at roughly the halfway point, and sometimes skiiers who've gotten lost in the woods on Killington or Pico wind up at the trailhead--out in the middle of nowhere, no lights, no people, no cell reception, and a mighty long walk to town!

Last Sunday was a particularly busy and crowded day because the weather was so fine. I must have met 20 people during the two and a half hours of my walk! One was riding her bike. Dog report: one beagle, two labs, (one golden, one black), one German shepherd, an Australian shepherd, and three Heinz-57s, all off leash and having a Big Time checking out all the critter tracks. And me.

Foodie day

The weather was kind of meh yesterday, so I made scones for breakfast. This is my take on Starbucks' maple oat scone: moister, not as sweet, more nuts -- and I toast the nuts to give them a rounder, more umami taste. I didn't put icing on this batch, because we wanted to eat them hot, right out of the oven.

Later we indulged ourselves with some good beer and a wheel of Camembrie from Blue Ledge Farm. Robert picked it up for free because it was a second -- it didn't come out the way they wanted it to. Maybe the texture is firmer than they wanted it to be, but it tasted fine to us! This cheese has the buttery flavor you'd expect from the name, and the bloomy rind has black pepper in it. Yum!