When you live in a state that celebrates five seasons (I live on a dirt road: mud season is real) it is difficult to choose a favorite. We start the seasonal calendar in the spring which in VT means June. We sugar in March so some call that spring, but in reality if you gather sap in buckets you'll find yourself waist deep in “sugar” snow. April comes in like a lion and goes out like one too. And April is the season of three letters- m u d. We peek our heads outside the front door to take a big breath of warmer breezes, make note of the small purple crocuses peeking through the retreating snow piles and bury our noses in seed catalogs dreaming big, red, tomato dreams. We don't dare take a step outside without Muck boots on our feet and bug nets over our faces. The stones that make up the pathway to our front door are still buried, first by snow, then by mud. We take bets on whether or not we will ever see them again. And so we traverse the space between house and car with big, mud-sucking steps. Dog towels hang at the ready and we swear. A lot.
We normally make our last morning fire in the wood stove in early June, and begin missing it two days later as the sun is not strong enough to permeate the woods around our house and warm us. I measure warmth by how long it takes me to lose the socks. Once things dry up a bit, out come the flip flops.
We think, a lot, about swimming in June. We talk about it, we photograph the lakes and rivers and even drag out our aluminum canoe, but we almost never swim before July. Considering most of our swimming is in rivers, the water is just still too dang cold. July fourth is the celebration of our independence from winter. When a vacation is planned, is what separates real Vermonters from everybody else. If we are going to be spending time on a body of water in Vermont, it is going to be in July. It is an undisputed scientific fact that June 30 will not be warm enough to swim but July 4th will be. The scientist is me, of course, but that counts. We cram all summer activities into July, and maybe early August. I have a summer bucket list scribbled on a pad in the kitchen and check off each activity as we do it in a bit of a fevered frenzy. If we are taking time off, it needs to be in July.
Summer sun blazes through our windows each morning making us hot in our beds. We live in the woods so it is a point of pride for us to have no air conditioning. I even resent fans and make no bones about it. I roast out of principle. Early August usually means we can get up and still put on your bathing suit right away. Two weeks later we get up in the morning, go to grab the suit and notice that we might be a lot more comfortable with a sweatshirt over it. As you traverse the space between house and car by walking over the miraculously re-appeared stepping stones, you'll find that the grass is now wet with morning dew. Late afternoon as we stroll down to the garden to pick tomatoes for dinner we notice some of the garden rests in the shadows. We look at your watch because we can suddenly hear time ticking.
Late August we drive down our road and suddenly notice some pale yellow leaves on the side of one of the maple trees. We turn our head's away because if we look at the other side of the road we'll still see all green leaves and can pretend we don't notice the inevitable beginning to appear. In good mast year the apple tree branches will be bending over with fruit and we make like squirrels and bring in our garden crops for winter. We busy ourselves with picking, freezing, canning and cutting, pressing for cider and bringing in hay. September is the month of the gather. The trees put on their finest for the buses upon buses of tourists (#thank you) the green fields are bordered by leaves that are on fire and magic is in the air.
October makes us happy because we can bundle up in wool and come in from the cold to be greeted by our reactivated wood stove, happy to be of service after its very brief respite. Halloween makes us festive and forgetful of what is coming. We slide into November on cold, wet puddles: sometimes cold enough for snow and sometimes not. November is the month for waiting.
Winter officially begins in December and even the most Scroogiest among us wants snow for the holidays. People are colder, but happier as they wave hello to everyone at the hardware store. Paul has had the snow blower parked facing outward in the garage for two months now, waiting for the first snow. In the beginning of winter he snow-blows everything, immediately and swears a lot because rocks break the shear pins in the snow blower. When there is finally enough snow to make giant plumes come out of the blower, I stand in the window and watch our dogs leap into the air to catch the flying snow. We leave the tiniest of cracks in our window to let the cold air into our bedroom at night so that we can pile on the wool blankets made from our sheep's wool. If we get up in the night to use the bathroom we race back into the bedroom and dive under the blankets and into the flannel sheets. Sublime.
January is full-on winter as the thermometer drops below the zero, sometimes for weeks in a row. Hat head is the norm and you don't speak of it when meeting neighbors at the grocery store. February can bring our biggest snowstorms but also can bring a week of warmer temperatures so that the icicles begin to drip along our roof line. February is the month of teasing.
We are in the middle of fall as I write this. If there is a light wind the leaves cascade down from the trees. I stand in the road and can't help trying to catch one, remembering from childhood that it means good fortune, and I feel happy. At this moment I will tell you, if you ask, that fall is my favorite season:until that first white snow blankets the ground and makes everything quiet again.
Melissa Perley