Vermont

Things have changed.

I’ve been quiet for awhile.

We are not in Spain. We are not in Oregon. We came to Vermont at the end of Winter in March of last year, starting in the Northeast Kingdom, followed by a little over 6 months in the Southern part of the state. Now we returned to the NEK so that our daughter could attend an exceptional school locally and we could live and work among friends. This is the part of Vermont that we first fell in love with and where we are making our home. When we left the states bound for the SE of England to study Biodynamic Agriculture more than 10 years ago this is not where we dreamed the path would take us. I am so happy that it did.

Vermont is a place that we had never considered seriously. If rarely it was suggested, it was immediately brushed off because of the demands of the climate.  If England kicked me down then what would serious winter do to me? Could I tolerate months of snow when months of rain was intolerable? Yet despite these questions, shortly after we were all back in the United States, we set our sights on New England. It would be hard, but we weren’t looking for easy. We had just uprooted a life we had worked so long to build. It was unexpected, but we were once again asking ourselves – where to next? We took a quick inventory of where we had lived previous to our life as expats, considered why we ultimately left those places and the primary reasons for returning to start over in this country.

Maples in Late Autumn. Northeast Kingdom,Vermont

The unlikely answer to “Where do we go now?” was the North East! Vermont shook out fairly early into our explorations as where we were headed.  

I never imagined that I could survive a winter here, and I have yet to have confirmation that I can, but I never imagined that I could walk 200km across Northern Spain and I did that because I decided to do it. So here we are, in Vermont, and we are doing it. Winter and all.  Maybe it will bring me to my knees. I suspect it is likely to do exactly that more than once. That’s okay. I know how to get back up.

There you have it. I am back.

Very happy to be here. Things are looking beautiful. They’re looking really good.