Precarious Plowing

It’s mid-March and another winter storm is expected to hit us. We had a foot just a week ago, since melted due to the warm, sunny days. The same is expected to follow this next storm. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each cycle creating a mini mud season with the road turning to muck.

I don’t mind the process of removing — or more accurately, moving — the snow when it falls. However, I still get nervous each time I mount the plow to the front of the truck and sit at the top of our steep hill, before inching the vehicle forward over the edge. Each time recalling the worst experience I had plowing my own driveway.

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Lessons from Vermont on Community

Thursday, Sarah and I went to our first Feast & Field market. She had recently interviewed one the people behind the group for our YouTube channel, and as we had taken off Friday to clean the barn in anticipation of shearing Camissa — among other chores — everything lined up.

It was a beautiful evening, and we had local tacos, beer & wine for our supper, and then shopped for local pasture-raised beef, and vegetables.  There was live music and people dancing and laughing. We knew a few faces, and caught up with folks we hadn’t seen recently. We met some new people, and I met some people I only knew over phone and email from my day job at the local cooperative fiber optic Internet. Sarah exchanged emails with a nice guy working at the beer and wine counter about potentially modeling some of her knitting creations. And on our way home we stopped by Kiss the Cow dairy and picked up a pint of sea salt & caramel — on the honor system as they were still at the event down the road.

We were there for only an hour and a half, and most of the time I sat listening to the live music and just watching it all unfold in front of me. But staring at the blue sky with wisps of white clouds, and listening to the combination of live music and the hum of the people, I had a revelation.  More of a duh moment, but an idea nonetheless. (more…)

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