The greatest percentage of the joy of living in Vermont comes from the fact that we have four very distinct seasons. Cue Vivaldi.
For us it isn’t about the clothes that we wear or the photo-ops that present themselves, it is about who we are because of these seasons.
Summer in Vermont is our short, but sweet season. Anyone who lives here will tell you to never plan a vacation here that depends on summer heat until at least the first week in July. We are still chucking sticks into our wood stove at the beginning of June to take the morning chill out of the house. Knowing this, you will find applications for summer camps, adverts for flip flops and fat packages of seeds in our local paper beginning on April Fool’s day.
July 1 we swim. We may have had a soggy, cold June, ice just having left the lake but, by goodness, swim we will on the first of July. March may be the month that is in like a Lion, out like a lamb, but in July, that lion roars in as humidity. Plants grow in July and August, we wilt. We put on our sunglasses and cram as much into these two months as possible. We garden in the cool mornings, hands permanently stained red from picking raspberries, and spend the afternoon in the Dog River floating on our backs under the shade of the maple trees.
Paul and I traveled to France one summer. We went in early July and spent three weeks there. Our days consisted of time in the cool Lot River, like Hippos with only our eyes and ears above water, escaping the one hundred degree heat. When we arrived back in Vermont the week before August we realized the we had missed the most beautiful time of the year here and decided to plan all future trips during mud season.
For us, the summer months are about remembering how to play and what that means. We can feel the knots unravel from our relaxation muscles.
The fall is when we become plaid squirrels, gathering nuts, the harvest and firewood. Beginning early August dew is on the grass: we dig out wool sweaters to wear until the sun heats up the day around noon. Mid-September, despite being hypnotized by the exploding colors all around us, we try to keep focused on the tasks at hand. Since we heat primarily with wood, fall is the time to mark and fell trees, split and stack wood, stuffing our woodshed until the sides bulge. Those beautiful maple leaves make us delirious as they spiral to the ground in October, but anxious while we are raking them in November, snow already spitting. We pile them on top of the garden, tucking it in until the following spring.
In the fall we are taskmasters. Gathering the bounty and storing it for days to come.
Our snow tires, with studs, are firmly in place by the beginning of October. “Over the River and through the Woods” is no joke. That horse better know the way. Though there are die-hards wearing shorts to the grocery store, most of us have our winter coats unpacked by November. Many a Thanksgiving morning begins with a good shovel. And just when we think we are in the swing of winter, a white holiday season in the bag, an odd thaw happens. The thermostat reads forty degrees and all of our snow melts leaving us with brown grass. However, mother nature often laughs last when, on Christmas eve day, we get a foot of white powder. When our son Ethan comes home from LA for the holidays, he makes us promise him a white Christmas. We go along with it, elbowing each other, knowing it is an impossible, but not implausible promise to make. January brings out the wool: hats, sweaters, socks, and of course blankets. Layer upon layer to keep out the subzero temps.
Winter makes us both physically and mentally tough. We burrow ourselves in and shovel ourselves out.
Spring is the season of respite. After months of cold hands, sore shoulders, bracing ourselves against [t frigid temps, the robins hopping around with mouths full of straw looking for real estate and the little purple crocuses peeking up from under the snow piles ignite hope in our frozen hearts. Even though you will still find our shovel leaning against the house, there is a broom propped up, hopefully, beside it. The mornings open with birdsong and end with calls from peepers. When I stand and look up at the night sky my ears are full of the sound of rushing water cascading down the mountain side.
The other day as I drove onto the pond I saw a woman next to a blue truck waving her hands at me to stop. She was standing in the middle of the road like a school crossing guard, gently herding a female snapping turtle the size of a large footstool . Snappers come out of the water and cross to the tributary to lay their eggs and then, ever, ever so slowly, crawl back to the other side. With people stopping for the crossing of animals, hope does, quite literally, spring eternal this time of year.
In Vermont, our four seasons define us. What and who we are and perhaps who we want to be is, in large part, because of them.
Melissa Perley