Eight Days, Fifty Cookies, and Greener Mountains

It's amazing to watch an entire forest grow.

I think I might have found the hardest thing to enjoy and love without being able to share: The sky at night. I wish that I could take a picture of the stars here, because they are breathtaking. I just hope that the stars wherever you find yourself at night are just as amazing. Or, even better, that one night you may be able to lay with me in the grass and enjoy the same sky.

Activities here have hit a pretty happy medium, and I've become very comfortable with the schedule that I've unknowingly made for myself. I have been waking up somewhere around 6:42 every morning. Immediately I have a minor anxiety attack, I breathe, and then I eat two bowls of cereal. (Usually on the back porch.) This is followed with a trip to the greenhouse, and a couple of hours on the swing set or in the sand box with the kids. Then I bake cookies, or cakes, or lunch. Go back to the green house. Go looking for minnows in the creek... and so on and so on. Lunch, Dinner and tea all take place somewhere in the midst of all that and then by 9 I am completely ready for bed. It's amazing.

I got myself a very part-time job (only 10 or so hours a week) at Yestermorrow doing some basic cleaning to fill in some time and make a little extra money when I'm not busy here or gardening with Faustina. It's not the most exciting or rigorous job I've ever had, but it does pay the same as my job in Boston (which is unheard of here...) and I get the most amazing benefit- Free classes! I am aloud to take any and all of the 1-3 day courses and 1 full time class for free while I'm employed there. Incase you don't know, Yestermorrow is an amazing design/build school in Warren that has classes like rooftop gardening; igloo, clay home and yurt building; and basic tool instruction. (Click here to go to their webpage.)

My dad came for a visit today. I was actually very pleasantly surprised, he took a red-eye in from California this morning, slept for only 2 hours, then got in his car and drove 3 hours to get here. After giving him the grand tour of the grounds here we sat down by the river, then took the back roads to Warren and went to Warren falls. He, just like me, loves the hypnotic roar of the falls and could probably have sat there in the sun all day. He stayed for some eggplant and got to know the McHugh family a little better, then headed home. Not a bad way to spend my first full saturday here. Tomorrow I'm headed back to Boston to clean up the mess I left behind and maybe give the city the farewell it deserves. I have to admit, part of me really misses the city. More on that later. After 8 days of amazing, sunny, warm and even hot weather... we are preparing for a cooler, rainy, indoor week. It should be interesting.

Where some of the magic happens: the "real" kitchen.

My first fudge cakes............A Dudash legend.

Strawberries and chocolate with the extra fudge frosting.

Some of the fifty hand-sized cookies that I baked the other night.

This morning we got to hang out with some ducklings and chicks!

Carly and Peeper.

Dymphna found her walking cane hidden amongst her harley davidson t-shirts and "hippy dresses" up in the barn.

What will soon be an amazing help-yourself road-side vegetable stand that Pat and Eric are constructing! Eventually complete with birch log posts, cedar shingle roof, and a ton of fruits and vegies.

Lots of ladders.

Josh still loves tractors.

The irony of Josh watching a video of himself watching a video of him jumping on the bed. It entertained him for a very long time.(Get it?)

Dad enjoying the falls.

Bailey helped me with the first batch of mint sea salt scrub. I'll use it in the shower tonight for the first time.

It's hard for me to chose what to write about and what to take pictures of. I have to stop myself from running around with the camera in my pocket all day, and remind myself that there are just some things that I need to live in and remember on my own. It's been consistently hot and sunny here. It's mid april and everyone's getting tan. The past couple of days have been productive in a completely different way than I'm used to, and I've been waking up in the morning to a quick anxiety attack because I remember that I don't have my job and don't have anywhere that I have to be. One turn and look out of my window and it's gone. The trees are turning green quickly, and the annuals are popping up in the gardens overnight!

Yesterday I went into town trying to find out if the flower store that I applied at still needed help, but I found that they moved locations so I decided to take advantage of the weather and go on a long drive. I love getting lost, and I tried pretty hard to, but I ended up pretty close to the house. Last night we barbecued cheeseburgers and I got a real feel for what summer will be like here. I think everyone should have a chance to spend a summer this way. I can't think of a more rewarding thing to do than give my time and to such a wonderful place. Today I've spent the morning in the greenhouse, driving the tractor, and cleaning up the community grounds. I have sorted and re-potted all of my seedlings now, and the gardens are more or less ready for planting.

The majority of the pictures are of the grounds here, so that you might get a better idea of what living at the community looks like.

The community!
Left to right: The main house (where I live); The garage, which has been converted into a heavy duty kitchen- Alison, Pat, Bailey and Josh live upstairs; The barn; The school (Preschool thru 2nd grade) which was built by community members and finished this past fall. The church- Steve, Ruth and Thomas live upstairs; and the greenhouse. The picture is taken in the back from the gardens.

The barn, our huge supply of logs for heating, and the greenhouse.

Meet Josh, the indestructible 2 year old, who's obsessed with tractors.

Out my bedroom window.

We got to hang out with this lovely pup last night. This is Lilly, she's 1.

The back yard from the porch outside of my room.

Steve and Thomas under the bridge that connects the playground and the gardens to the rest of the land.

Warren falls- maybe one of the most relaxing places I've ever been to. I hung out here alone for over an hour yesterday. The roar from the waterfalls is enough to clear anyones thoughts for a while.

The truck in all her Glory.

A beautiful and symmetrical cemetery near by.

This is one of the local Yestermorrow's structures that I randomly found. Yestermorrow is a design/build school in Warren which focuses on sustainability and natural resources.

Val (Micah's mom) and I teamed up on dinner last night. Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables!

Sea salt soaking to make hand and foot scrub.

It has been done.

This was originally supposed to be a journal of art and crafts, but I found that I was completely unmotivated to actually post any art that I was making. It's been over two months since I created this blog and I haven't touched it. . . Today, sitting by the river, I realized that I was going to be taking a lot of pictures and having an uncountable amount of incredible experiences, and it would be too bad not to share them. My hope is to be able to keep taking pictures of the amazing things going on around me and keep some sort of orderly visual journal. Maybe someone somewhere will be inspired to go on a bike ride or plant a vegetable or cook their family a dinner. Maybe not. . . At the very least my family will have a way to keep tabs on me and I'll have a way to look back on this some day.

So. . . after living in Boston for 6 years and never having a real plan or any direction, I decided to move to Vermont, kind of out of the blue. Two days ago, my boyfriend Micah and I loaded my truck up with only the things that I really needed and drove the 3 hour trip north to Moretown, Vt. I'll be staying at a community with some of the most amazing, loving, down to earth people that I've ever met, taking advantage of whatever is put in my path. I think the pictures will speak for themselves, however I should say that the weather here went from ice and sledding to hot and gardening in a matter of days, needless to say everyone's taking advantage.

I'm going to try to post new pictures every few days. Keep in touch and enjoy-

A view of the back yard

Inside the greenhouse. Everything's growing happily!

This is Bailey (7) and Thomas (8). I took them on the bike path along the river today.

Bailey enjoying some strawberries on a snack break.

I spent the majority of the day dividing and replanting the seedlings that Micah and I planted back in Boston a few weeks ago. This is the chamomile.

Micah and I sat on a rock for a while and were happy to see that the rapids from all of the snow melting were being taken advantage of.

I found a wild flower growing near the river and discovered that when I pinched it out from the ground my hands were covered in bright orange paint. Hopefully I can do something with it before they're gone

Bailey, Micah, Thomas and I spent about an hour trying to catch minnows today. I only caught one, but Thomas got about 10.

Steve reading outside the greenhouse

The Mad River

I've gone on an amazing bike ride every day so far. It's hard to miss the city when you go from biking in car exhaust and traffic to biking along a river in the mountains. (Thank you, Kurt, for fixing my bike up!)