The south wind blows and the ridgepole of the old one-room camp creaks above our heads. We are on the shores of mid-Lake Champlain. With the window slightly cracked open, we can hear the waves lapping against the rocky shoreline.
It’s a quiet time of year now, as we begin that slow and ominous trek to shorter and colder days. Thank goodness for the brilliance along the way: the last gasp hues of the maple leaves, the deep red of the apples and, in my case, the bright pop of the yellow table out on the deck in a landscape otherwise gray and white and brown and rainy.
It was Tuesday afternoon, when the kids get out of school early — dismissal is at 2 p.m. instead of 3. My daughter, Coco, had made a plan with some of her 8th grade friends to walk across the street after school to Philo Ridge Farm. I loved this idea, that the kids have a place they could walk to from their school. I loved their planning and I loved, even more, the execution, which I saw because I drove past the school at just the moment when they were being chaperoned from CCS to Philo Ridge by none other than their principal, Jen Roth.
I swear to you, I wait all year for the first week in May. It’s got that Christmas Eve-not-long-till-you-open-your-presents thing going for it, and if you’ve ever been to Ireland, then and only then do you have something to compare the greenery of a Vermont May to.
Vermont trapping season has started and runs through March 31. Each trapping season, dogs, cats and other non-targeted animals, including endangered and protected species, are injured or even killed in traps.