loons, geese, foxes, trout lily, coltsfoot . . . . . .

aka my nearest and dearest acquaintances up here on this little hillside .........

hello friends :-) what a thrill it is to compost i mean COMPOST I MEAN COMPOSE .... another blog post!!!

it feels as though much has happened. i've nearly been living in my temporary vermonty cabin for a whole month, working full time again and i have absolutely no idea how i got from april first to here. but yet, here i am and here we all are. no not here, H E R E ! ! ! 

(here)

in the past three weeks i have:

(ensuing: A VERY LONG LIST)

• started my new jobbbbbb. mostly it is farming, but also some gardening and landscaping turns out. we had a big greenhouse disaster where the propane heater stopped working and we couldn't bring any starts in for like a week! it was intense! we do everything by hand here – no cool seeding tools to learn yet...but maybe one day...we've direct seeded spinach and snap peas, and planning on carrots soon as it's still quite frosty. lots of starts hanging out in our temporarily-repaired greenhouse. lots and lots of hand-weeding which in the sun i quite enjoy. LOTS of mulching and bed prep!! some raking of leaves here and there, putting up trellising, carrying things, taking the staples out of cardboard to lay in fields later, and so on and so forth. it is so nice to be outside so much of the time.

• started a little personal garden plot >:-)

in progresssssss

• WITNESSED THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE ! ! ! !  !! ! my mom came up to visit for the weekend and we were able to see it together sitting right outside my house in some chairs in the grass.

my mom and me :-)

• gone on many walks in search of signs of SPRING! as flowers go, so far i have seen: trout's lily (just the leaves), dandelion greens, coltsfoot (an invasive yellow flower), and bloodroot. plus many bulbs (tulips, daffodils, mostly). today i saw like TWO violas/johnny jump ups!! this is a big deal guys. i know many of you live in the midwest and or new york city and or the south and or california and you are like what it is already spring here??! if not summer basically?!?! well NOT way up fifteen miles from the canadian border it hasn't been!! not til now!!!!!!!!!!

trout lily in the woods!! (4-16-24)

coltsfoot (4-10-24)

bloodroot (4-20-24)

• listened to various radio shows whilst driving to montpelier. topics have included: political polarization, beyonce's new album, VULTURES and their insane digestive systems!!!! they are like the immune system of the EARTH!!!!!

• seen several animals. OK this has been very exciting actually as it turns out there are three baby FOXES and their parents living very close to me. they happen to be living underneath a building where we hope to one day keep chickens. hm. but OH they are so so cute. the babies sit out in the sun and jump on each other and run and play all over the place. i saw their mom just once from far and she looked at me and made strange sounds until her kiddos hid themselves away, and she kept looking at me until i turned around and then slunk off to the woods (her not me). i have also seen and heard loons, geese, various unidentified birds, some turkeys, and deer. my porcupine friend has, it seems, decided to nest elsewhere :-( turns out under the floor of a cabin is less cosy than it initially seemed....o well.

two baby foxes in the doorway of the barnyard, AAA!!! <3

• attended a goat birthday party. they were two siblings, past members of villa villekulla's herd who were turning one year old. let's be honest, this was mostly a party for local children and their corresponding adults BUT the goats were the stars of the show in their own way, adorned in little hats and scarves as they were, eating birthday salads from silver platters, jumping on the drinks table to indulge in some leftover lemonade intended for humans, and generally romping about having a very joyous and chaotic time.

happy one whole year around the sun!!!!!

• obtained a new library card. the library here is very sweet and homey. they ask you to take off your shoes before entering so you don't track mud or sand in, and there are many comfy chairs as well as an old typewriter that you can borrow.

• been propositioned about learning how to operate a tractor by a farmer outside the library who looked at my tire with me to make sure it wasn't actually flat (it is only a matter of time....these roads are so bumpy). he said, oh you're learning to farm? well if ya ever wanna learn to bale hay, you can come up to my farm and i'll teach ya how to drive a TRACTOR! i said thank you i think i will be learning that for my job but if we don't get around to it i'll take you up on it :-0

• turned 25 years old :-000000 (thank you for the birthday wishes <3)

• arrived very very late to a mending circle...but i did learn a trick for darning socks – it is to use a LIGHTBULB!!! because it is hard and your needle doesn't stick into it! also what a great use for an old dead lightbulb!! especially if you don't have a so-called darning egg already!!!)

• had countless awkward and approximately three fun interactions with strangers at a honky tonk as well as saw my coworker there who was until quite recently the only other person my age i have met in this whole entire town so far. most of the awkwardness was from going alone and not knowing how to ask people to dance the two step....and also an older gentleman kissed my hand after we danced and i thought that was a little forward but also maybe kinda charming in an old fashioned light? but also it is uncomf when a stranger puts their mouth on your hand ya know like AAAAA

but at least the band was goooood

• danced at a MUCH LESS AWKWARD THAN THE HONKY TONK O DEAR GOD contra dance, i had never danced this style of dance before and i was the only person there wearing cowboy boots oops but OH it was so fun and lively and the music was really dramatic and involved many features of the mouth organ which for me stole the whole entire show

• made a new friend!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! she is an older woman who lives in town and she is the person who invited me to the goat birthday party and we also went hiking together earlier this week :,,,-) she told me all about her life and even told me about her new sweetie and how he writes her emails and they go out and see music together. we saw fairy houses in the woods and watched her sweet dog eat some dirt off the ground and looked out at the mountains and the apparently and interestingly very contentious wind turbines on the ridge (turns out if you buy up a whole mountain ridge and put wind turbines all over it right near a bunch of people's houses and in ecologically critical terrain just so you can make a bunch of money for your own private business which is based out of state, people will not be thrilled, and they will in fact protest intensely).

• met yet another very very very delightful dog who wandered down the middle of the road to greet my car, as if to invite me to step outside so he could chaperone me off to another dimension and i felt like i was in a murakami novel

he is the larger dog (his name is zeke)

• changed the engine and cabin air filters in my car >:-) I AM PROUD OF MYSELF FOR ACTUALLY DOING THIS I MUST ADMIT. rip the poor unfortunate mouse who was living in my car who is no longer (a) living (b) in my car.........

let it be known that these are the highlights.....

but don't worry we got lowlights too!! though they are not really too crazy. but for the sake of contrast and realism they include: a lost stranger coming all the way up to my cabin in the middle of nowhere off the side of a random teeny dirt road to ask for directions and appearing at the door window out of NOWHERE and scaring me half to death......almost backing the farm truck into a tree and also a gate.....running over broken wood with the farm truck when no one was there to see it thank goodness there were no nails......HAVE I MENTIONED MY BOSS WILL DRIVE THIS TRUCK IN REVERSE UP THE ROAD THE WAY NORMAL PEOPLE DRIVE FORWARDS!? AS IN, AT TOP SPEED, HARDLY SLOWING FOR THE CURVES??! i have not yet gleaned this skill from her. i doubt i ever will....at this rate.....but maybe several months from now.......after i've spent many hours time threading the needle (the thread is the truck, the needle is that one gate again). also, some weird housing debacles since the recent arrival of my NEW (!) coworker, which have since resolved, and are not really anyone's fault, but ARE an unfortunate byproduct of cold cold weather and no one really having a plan for how to house us two april staffmembers adequately when there is limited availability of heat, cooking spaces, wifi, etc. perhaps these are modern problems. ALAS! thankfully all seems better as of recent.

YET! mostly things have been good and a lot better than that first week or so when i'd just moved here, when it was very snowy, and i felt very isolated and strange, and was somewhat reeling from being set down in the middle of a very new and unfamiliar place away from many of the things and folks i know and love. but enough belaboring of that!!! things here are getting a little more hopeful and exciting with the real true undeniable arrival of SPRING. and this is very good.

OK WOW THIS IS SO LONG AND I AM TIRED. BUT THIS WAS FUN TO REMINISCE ABOUT. i don't want to set any expectations about my ability to list elements of my life so comprehensively ever again or necessarily expect anyone to read through something so long. but as for this time, this whole long saga has been written, so written it shall remain and thank you for reading. i <3 the blogosphere. kay gnite!!!!! >:-)

driving to and from and to and from