Farmers Market

I am beginning to get a little worried about our farmers' market visits.  You see, Little Man is one of Samosa Man's most loyal customers and I think part of it has to do with the fact that Samosa Man knows who he is from across the room.  The problem; in May we will begin to go to the outdoor farmers market in town and while there is a Samosa Man table, it is not actually the Samosa Man who runs the one in town.  It is teenagers that he has hired.  That's OK, his favorite teenagers have a muffin table at the one in town, life will go on. 

 

As for the rest of the farmers' market; it was wonderful.  The nut butter lady was back and I had some before heading out on a long run today.  I tried a maple raisin soft pretzel that was wonderful! When Little Man asked for some, I was more than happy to remind him that he does not like soft pretzels. 

 

In all a wonderful day at the farmers' market. 

 

Oh and Happy Easter!

Nice Night For A Fire

It is finally sweater weather here and it is wonderful.  We ended a perfect day by roasting hot dogs around the camp fire.  Did I mention I still love my fire pit?

 The best part was that once Little Man was asleep in bed; mommy and daddy went back outside to enjoy the fire and stars for a little bit.  We did come in a bit sooner then planned though, because we realized that once the sun goes down it starts getting cold.  It is still sugaring season in Vermont, need those 20 degree nights.  It was nice to sit around the campfire for a little bit though;uninterrupted by a little crazy man running around. 

Maple Season

Vermont Maple Open House Weekend; one of my favorite weekends in Vermont.  It also happens to be one of Little Man's favorite weekends because he knows it means sugar on snow.  He just about jumped out the the car and ran to the sugar house.

For those of you who are not from Vermont, you may ask: what is this sugar on snow thing?  You take boiling hot, fresh maple syrup and drizzle it on shaved ice or snow(Typically you do a little at a time, however, if you have a 5 year old, it all goes in at once).  It then becomes sticky goodness. They even provide a pickle to cleanse your palate between bites and aid in the consumption of more maple syrup.  

This year provided and extra special treat. Little Man learned how to tap a tree.  Somewhere in his head he had decided that woodpeckers make the hole and someone follows behind them sticking taps in the holes being made (not sure where this came from).  This weekend, he learned that you drill the hole and then hammer the tap in the rest of the way.  We left with sugar in our bellies and a better understanding of how maple sugar is made; no woodpeckers needed.  

Duck Update: Week 1

Week One: Duck Report

The ducks survived the cold nights in the bed of the truck this week and have grown to twice the size.  This year they are even a little less skittish. While they do not like being picked up, they will come over to the side you are standing on and glance expectantly up at you.  How, you might ask, did we pull this off? We started hand-feeding them lettuce as soon as we got them home.  They love it and will come running over to you expectantly.  No more skittish ducks.  Just happy healthy ducks.

Beautiful Things

Saving Lady Bugs

I am beginning to realize that somewhere along the line, someone who owned our house introduced many things that they should not have to our garden.  I have had to deal with Japanese Knotweed, Bishops Weed, mint (unconfined it can take over) and the most obnoxious one: Asian Lady Beetle's (aka Japanese Ladybugs).  What is so obnoxious about ladybugs you ask?  While this particular breed is not native to our area; some people introduce them to their gardens in order to kill aphids.  The problem with this is, unlike their native counterparts, these little guys hibernate by the hundreds in your home during the winter and the moment it warms up, you have millions of them buzzing past your head. One of them even buzzed into the pasta I was making for dinner tonight. 

 

Given my current annoyance to waking up in the middle of the night because there is a ladybug crawling up my arm (or buzzing past my head), I have set out to rid our house of ladybugs.  The current solution: a vacuum that is parked near the two windows they seem to enter the house through.  I can vacuum anywhere from 10-50 of these guys up a day.  Unfortunately, the second I walk away, there are more who immediately replace the ones that have just been sucked up into the vacuum. 

 

My son, on the other hand, has determined to take a different approach.  His goal is to save all the lady bugs from Mommy with his little bug catcher and then race them out the door to freedom. 

 

Happy Ducklings!

Finally! They have arrived!Seven happy little ducklings arrived this afternoon and, due to the cold temperatures outside, Little Man was able to visit with them in the kitchen while the brooder was warming up. 

This set of ducklings is much more social then the last, possibly because there are more this time.  We started the socialization process with them by feeding them by hand and within minutes they were jumping in and out of our hands.  One even tried to take a nap in my hand. 

 My favorite part of having ducks: they are really fun to watch.  The second I placed a small dish of water in the box for them to drink, this little guy went for a swim.  From there the ducks leisurely took turns jumping in and out of the bowl. As you can see, I am very excited about our new ducklings. 

Cheese Obsession

Since we have recently gone back to purchasing our milk directly from the farm, we have also gone back to making our own cheese.  While I have taken two different cheese making classes and have a cheese making book, we prefer the kit that you can buy at most natural food stores in the area.  It has all of the necessary ingredients for mozzarella and ricotta and it means that we do not have to buy items in bulk.  Simple, straightforward cheese making.

 While the whole process of making cheese is pretty cool, my personal favorite is cutting the curds.  For one brief moment in time, you have all these perfect little cheese squares floating around the pot.  It does not last for long, as all those perfect little squares become one cheesy mass in the middle of the pot. 

 The last step in the process is working the remainder of the liquid out of the cheese and shaping it into the perfect ball, with just the right amount of cheese salt added.  This is where things get interesting in our household, as there appears to be a major competition between Andy and myself as to who can make the smoothest, most perfect ball of mozzarella.  In fact, it has become so competitive, that tonight he resorted to cheating.  Once I had been lulled into a sense of victory and my cheese was comfortably chilling in cold water, Andy grabbed one of my ramekins and shaped his cheese into the perfect mold.  That's OK, since we are back to buying milk from the farm there will be many more cheese making sessions for me to secure my victory.

Farmers Market and Healthy Living

I have to be honest: today I just was not feeling the Farmers Market.  We wandered around as usual and the only thing I was craving was something warm to drink, and of course the two people who typically serve warm drinks were not doing warm drinks today.  Maybe it was because I have been feeling sick all week or maybe it was because of the little person tugging at my arm, but I left the farmers market feeling very unsatisfied today and really in need of something to perk me up before my afternoon run. 

What to do? What to do? Head to Healthy Living; they have a drink bar.  While Little Man tugged at Daddy's arm as they walked around the store, Mommy headed straight for a warm frothy beverage; Maple Steamed Milk.  After chatting with one of my co-workers who had just returned from a run and a warm beverage in my hand, I was then willing to go and relieve Daddy of child duty. Warm beverage in his hands, we sat down at one of the bistro tables and waited for Daddy. 

 While our trip to both locations yielded a small amount of food for the week, I left feeling much better and ready for a run and little more motivated then I had been an hour earlier. 

Annual Vist to See The Kids

Every spring one of my co-workers invites us over to visit the new baby goats (kids).  Little Man loves the trip so much that a few weeks ago, he asked when we were going.  As the years have passed, he has gotten progressively more comfortable with the kids and even picked them up and was running around playing with them this year.  One in particular (the one at the bottom of the page) he fell in love with and I had to bribe him with a trip to the local bakery in order to get him to leave without sneaking the kid into the car with him.  He had the whole thing plotted out; there is plenty of room in the car and he can live in the coop with the chickens.  Although, truth be told, if we had a place to put him and I could ever convince Andy to let me bring one home, we would for sure have a goat living in the back yard by now.  Alas, for now I will just have to live with my yearly visits to Diantha's house.

Signs of Mud Season

Beyond the several loads of muddy winter clothing and the layer of caked-on mud on my car, there are several other indicators that we have reached mud season.  For starters, the volume of people walking, biking and running on the local roads has significantly increased over the last week or so.  Then you have the musical drip, drip of melting snow, accompanied by the song birds that have begun to fly north for the season.  But by far my favorite part of mud season.........Maple Syrup.  Yes, the sap is running, people! To top it all off, syrup buckets magically appeared on the trees between our house and the neighbor's, which Little Man and I needed to promptly go and investigate.  While of no benefit to us, they will serve as entertainment and a means for getting Little Man back outside. Though I am not sure I really need any motivation.  You see.....

 Little Man seems to think he is a javelin thrower and pole vaulter and has been practicing in the back yard.  Maybe I took him too many track practices with me last spring? Alas, yet another sign that mud season has arrived. 



Back on Track

Near the end of cross-country season, we managed to get off track in a few areas of our life and are working towards getting back into old "good" habits.  One of those habits was buying our milk directly from the farm.  Not only is it less expensive than the stuff we buy at the store, we are supporting our local farmers who are very much in need of the support.  So today we took the first step to getting back on track and picked up our jar of fresh-from-the-cow milk at the farm this morning. 

 

Vermont Flower Show: This Year

I have to start this blog by admitting I was not nearly as into the flower show this year as I have been previous years.  Maybe it is because we have had an amazing winter and unlike other years where I am dying for spring, I am just not ready for this winter to be over.  Maybe it was because we went on a Sunday instead of our typical Saturday trip.  Or just maybe it was because we missed the kids activities and rather than being his usual bubbly self, Little Man was ready to leave shortly after we arrived.  Unlike most year when I am very much in need of the flower show, I just was not all that into it this year. 

 

Now don't get me wrong, there were some wonderful aspects of the flower show.  The theme this year was Robert Frost's "Stopping by The Woods On a Snowy Evening," one of my favorite poems.  While I will admit I loved the sweet smells and the twisting stone walls that ran through the flower exhibit, this may have been what soured me from the start.  You see being a New Englander, this is one of my favorite poems and I had an image in my mind about what the flower exhibit was supposed to look like.  While beautiful the exhibit was not the wonderful world that I imagined, but the walls were beautiful and the flowers did smell wonderful. 

 

 I think every house should have these guys standing at the door. 

 Thankfully, the model train was exactly where Little Man expected it to be and he even managed to meet up with two friends.  It was not a complete wash for him, even though he seemed to think it was on the way out the door.  We had to entice him with lunch at Five Guys if he could just make it through the flower show.  I regret that decision now and am thinking I may need to go for more than one long run this week to work of the after-effect. 

In all it was not a complete waste of time, however, it was not my favorite flower show and I did not come away from it excited for the spring, which I typically do. 

 

Note: Stay tuned for duck blogs, they will be coming shortly!

Road Trip: St. Johnsbury

After chasing Grandma's cat into deep hiding, we set out on another day of adventure and exploration.  I have to admit, I think we are setting a trend, since this one also begins at a bookstore; Boxcar & Caboose Bookstore on Railroad Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.  I have to admit, this is not my first visit to this particular store.  I love it because there is a bus in the children's area that is very entertaining to most kids, and you can look at the bookshelves around the bus without having to repeat the phrase "look with your eyes, not your hands" a thousand times.  In addition to the wonderful kids' area, there is also a cafe attached to the bookstore.  Everything a modern mom could want.  Of course then there is the small matter of the Little Man who can manipulate grandma into buying him things for him at stores such as this(this will not be the last time on this adventure either).

 Upon leaving the bookstore, we wandered over to the Farmer's Market just down the street.  Since we are missing the one at home, what better way to figure out what the farmers on this side of the state have to offer. This particular farmers market is extremely dog friendly and before we even get into the building three different people have offered to let Little Man hang out with some really cool dogs.  Once we finally make it though the door, he then manages to find a dog statue to hug on.  After we have removed Little Man from the statue, we wandered around and found some treats for later and then headed back out into the cold. 

 Hungry from all the wonderful smells at the farmers market, we wandered just up the street to Dylan's Cafe located in an old renovated post office for lunch.  The food was locally sourced and, for what we had, not bad.  I had a cheddar ale soup and half of Little Man's BLT, of which he promptly tore apart and ate the bacon.  I would definitely  go again for lunch, except next time I would do it on a day that the gallery at The Catamount Art's Center was open next door. 

 Our final and favorite destination of the day was the Fairbanks Museum and Planatarium. Thankfully we arrived a little over an hour early to check out the museum, because the planetarium show sold out just after we arrived.  Little Man, who had been looking forward to going to his first planetarium, moved around the museum like a chipmunk on caffeine, although when he described his visit to his dad later, he was able to tell him all about the different things he saw, which I thought for sure he had missed and rushed through.  With time left to kill, we ventured into the gift store, where he managed to convince grandma once again to buy him an owl, stating it was for mommy.  Did I mention has since hidden the owl in his room? After hitting up the gift store, we wandered downstairs to the childrens' area, where there are several hands-on kids' activity stations.  Little Man finally slowed to a peaceful concentration when he found magnetic building blocks to work with; I think he would still be there had the man behind him not told his daughter that they needed to go upstairs and find a seat.  With that, Little Man bolted for the winding stairs to find his seat in the planetarium.  After a long discussion about how we came to measure time by the stars and planets, we arrived at Little Man's favorite part, the constellations, which he later explained in depth to his dad as he bounced around the livingroom. Another great adventure come to an end. 

Note: If anyone knows how to make a side tab on my blog specifically for road trips, can you let me know how to do it? 

Road Trip: Waterbury to Montpelier

There is nothing I love more than exploring the area I am in and finding all of the great local spots: I did it when I was growing up, I have done it every place I have lived, I do it on vacation and I continue to explore.  When we lived just outside of Washington D.C., my favorite part of the Sunday paper was a section dedicated to road trips.  I miss it dearly, so I have decided to blog about our excursions on my own blog for my friends and family in Vermont and pretty much every place we visit or vacation.  This week, we managed to drag some friends along for one of our road trips and had a blast.  So here goes.......

 

Our first stop was Bridgeside Books on Stowe Street in Waterbury, Vermont.  I learned about it through a local business guide and it looked really cute from the pictures, and of course every road trip needs a cute bookstore in it right? It was just that, a cute little bookstore, with a lot of local authors represented throughout the store and the token gray cat who would occasionally wander by.  Little Man and I sat quietly and read in the children's corner, while we waited for our friends to arrive.  It was a nice way to start the day. 

 After purchasing some reading material for Little Man  to look at while we drive from place to place, we stopped in for a snack at Red Hen in Middlesex, Vermont, because every road trip needs a good cafe or bakery.  Not only is the food here scrumptious (we split an apple cinnamon scone and pot of peppermint tea), there are several ways to entertain the kids while the moms talk.  To start with, there is a counter they can sit at with glass windows that look into the bakery and watch them make bread. Then when the novelty of the bakers wears off, there is a couched area with books and a few toys to entertain.  It was wonderful and I even bought a baguette for us to bring to grandma's for dinner later that day.   

 

Once we had filled our bellies we a few treats, we headed to Monpelier to the Vermont History Museum.   I have to admit, in looking at their website I was not entirely hopeful, but curious none the less.  It turned out to have plenty of hands-on activities for the kids to do and I even had a few seconds to read the signs and learn a little bit about Vermont history as we went. Interestingly enough, my son's favorite part of the museum was listening to phones attached to the walls, where various Vermonters past and present told their stories.  

We were eventually able to drag the kids out of the museum by tempting them with food. We sauntered down to Main Street where we found the Mad Taco. This was by far my favorite part of the trip.  The food was amazingly fresh and delightful and for the price, not bad considering the portion size.  In addition to all that, the man working the cash register was incredibly excited about the food they were serving (always a good sign) and great with all kids (also a good sign).  The kids loved the bar stools at the table and the moms were able to sample some of the salsas/hot sauces.  All very different from your usual salsa/sauce fare and very good.  However, we did not venture past level four.  

Bellies once again full, we ventured back to cars, not wanting to run out the meters. The kids, however, were able to convince the moms to stop at a Woodbury Mountain Toys on the way, it was just too tempting not to go in.  An end to a wonderful day with friends. 

 

Stay tuned for the following day's adventure.