From Portland, ME to Burlington, VT

On Sunday, I went to church at the First Unitarian Church in Portland. The topic was "Heart in Place", a very relevant topic to me in my search for a new place to call home. The woman speaking spoke of places that feel like home sometimes a place you visit repeatedly and sometimes a place you have visited once. Being in Vermont again today, in Burlington, is making me realize how at home I feel in Vermont. Either in the hills of rural southern Vermont or in the town of Burlington. I love it here! The talk also reminded me of how I felt when I went to Amsterdam the first time, like I was home. I also felt that way about Brooklyn the first time I got out of the G train stop at Clinton-Washington. I did Brooklyn, maybe Vermont is next and then Amsterdam?

So on Sunday afternoon my friend Ashley flew to Maine to join me for part of my trip. Our first stop was to go to Duck Fat for what had been claimed at "the best fries". They were perfect fries- the ones that were long anyway. my complaint was that there were too many shorties! They also have an interesting selection of dipping sauces, we tried three: Truffle ketchup, sweet & spicy mustard and horseradish mayo. They were served in a paper cone, as is the fashion for Belgian fries (I'm pretty sure...).

Duck Fat fries and dipping sauces in Portland, Maine

After Duck Fat we stopped for ice cream at Beals, a local favorite that wasn't too crowded at first then the line went out the door. The ice cream was all right, the serving sizes generous :) After saying goodbye to Allison, my lovely host who I know from Oregon and hadn't seen in more than 10 years! we headed to Cape Elizabeth to go to the popular Lobster Shack. It was the epitome of the Maine experience. Rocky coast, park benches next to the water, long line, lots of Jersey license plates :P We got a clam cake and a lobster roll to split. I can now say I've had lobster, for sure (I wasn't 100% sure before) and it was ok... I think it needed some butter! (That dollop on top is mayo.)

The Lobster Shack Cape Elizabeth, Maine

After we had our Maine seafood experience, we headed to Burlington. We left at about 8pm, oops! The drive was about 5 hours and we pretty much drove straight through and fell asleep the moment we arrived at Ashley's friends' place.

We woke up this morning around 7:30, and slowly woke up enough by 8:30 to realize were were massively hungry (and Ashley was in desperate need of coffee) so we headed out to a place suggested by our hosts, only to find they weren't open! The next place was also closed so we ended up walking south into downtown and put our names on the 1 hour wait list for Penny Cluse Café. While we waited we wandered down the pedestrian mall of Church street and stopped at Bluebird Coffee Shop, a small freestanding building on Church Street. This guy knew his coffee, and Ashley was impressed enough to trust him to make her coffee. After our coffee we wandered back to the restaurant and finally ate. It was delicious and totally worth the wait! After we ate and walked around a bit we headed back to our hosts' place where the packaging of baked goods was in progress! Feeling that it would have been rude to just sit there and watch as Abby packaged her gluten-free (and super tasty) baked goods, we offered to help. I can now add a little bakery experience, for From the Ground Up Bakery, (though just packaging) to my list of experiences gained on this trip!

Freshly baked and beautifully packaged gluten-free English muffins

After all the items were packaged, labeled and placed in their respective bins for delivery we began to ponder dinner. We all headed over to City Market where I was drooling over the large bulk section and bought lots of food to fill my cooler and have snacks for the trip. We also bought some veggies to grill! We came back home, prepped the veggies then headed to Leddy Park and grilled up a wholelotta veggies. We also had some lentils and quinoa with us which made for a delicious meal. Mmm fire! After we left the park, where the water was so high that the wide swath of beach that is normally there was completely obscured by water, we headed to The Intervale.

(Hard to see but these signs are talking about the beach... that isn't there at the moment!)

The Intervale is a really interesting place and I don't want to botch the history of it by trying to explain it so I will just give you a link... The Intervale!

Now we are winding down to spend the night in Burlington and tomorrow we will head to Montreal, a mere 2 hours away from Burlington!

Project: compost sieve

Finished! To the extent I will be working on it... I don't know much about motors and gears and stuff... so I finished building the frame and basic structure and Dan is going to add the gear later; probably a motor.
The right side is a tumbler (that black rubber strap is waiting for a motor or gear of some sort) and the left side is a chute. You toss compost in on the right side and compost sifts and rocks tumble out. We decided to design it of the tractor bucket because it was the easiest way to them get the compost wherever you want it.
The chute has rails to make sure the rocks don't fall back into the tractor bucket. Farm #1 raises turkeys for Thanksgiving/Christmas and the bedding is replaced daily. The previous caretaker had spread rocks all over the floor of the turkey house (who knows why, seems silly) so now whenever the straw bedding is shoveled out and put into the compost pile it's full of rocks. Hence my project: Compost Sieve.


Side note about yaks!
This is what yaks do when they are spooked. They are standing in a group with yaks facing in different directions. They were standing like that for a while until a wild turkey flew up out of the grass and they broke apart their neighborhood watch group.


UPDATE: I also drove a big tractor (solo; it is a John Deere) for the first time today!

Projects!

Today I got started on the rotary compost sieve. I decided to get all fancy (and get some practice) with joinery for the frame... I forgot how long it takes! The first joint took me a long, long time. The second one went much faster but still, I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to! Not everyone knows what a mortise and tenon are, so I clarified my photo with some text :)


I also snapped a picture of the trailer now that it's been finished- it looks amazing! Too bad I have to remove the latches and move them down a bit- there are going to be some holes :(

Trailer before and after

I can't believe I'll only be here for a couple more days! Much more exploration ahead, I'm sure people reading my blog will be much more interested in my exploration of cities than my projects though :)

No rapture? No problem!

I just spent a wonderful weekend with friends who came up from Brooklyn. Friday I made vegan-gluten-free- mac and cheese (the same one I made down in DE) and it was still super delicious!

Saturday after sleeping in a bit, we went for a walk down the rail trail to our friend's place a mile down the road on Saturday and were treated to amazing gooey gluten free brownies and fresh watermelon. We came back to Farm #1 and had a rapture party, including a turkey dinner (that was raised by my hosts last fall... and was so delicious!). Lots of drinks (Dan makes amazing cocktails that have spoiled us for drinks at bars!), lots of amazing food and lovely people. The wonderful thing about starting a party around 4 is that people with kids can leave early and the rest of us who remain can spend the evening playing boardgames!

Sunday morning A managed to wrangle us all to get to the Dorset farmer's market around 10am, when it opens. Being at the market when it first opens is great, all the produce is fresh and beautiful, and being in a small town we inevitably ran into like 3 people who we had just seen at the party the night before! After some breakfast, we checked out the Merck Forest & Farmland Center and saw some baby chickens, pigs and lambs.


The baby lambs were my favorite! I would have liked to get in there and pet them but it wasn't set up in a way that invited petting. As we were leaving Merck Forest, we passed their new sugaring house. Our hostess used to work there and told us all about the maple sugaring process. The sugaring house itself was also interesting to look at. As soon as we walked in I was examining the joinery (I miss timberframing!) and it seemed like an odd structure, the ridge beam was very small, the rafters of the roof were resting on post that were smaller than the roof support, there were lap joints on top of the posts, metal connections in the beams and the peak of the roof overlapped. It turns out that the building was not designed by an architect, it was kind of thrown together by someone who kind of knew what they were doing but clearly not enough. Vermont is neat because of it's lack of building codes, but it seems like it should be required for a public building to be signed off on at least by an engineer! There are crazy snow and wind loads up in these beautiful mountains! The building didn't pass inspection and had to be retro fitted, hence the extra supports tied in with metal.


All that talk about maple syrup I couldn't wait to get back to the house and have some :) We came back to the farm and had a lovely dinner prepared by M&A with fixings from the farmer's market. For dessert we had maple marshmallows I'd made Friday... topped with a little maple syrup and crumbled bacon that had been purchased at the morning's market. It was... interesting. The sweetness of the maple and the saltiness of the bacon and the two textures... it was interesting. not bad, but not something I'd eat on a regular basis! No regrets for trying it anyhow :)

Now it is Monday, M&A are getting ready (slowly... long night of gaming last night!) to head back to Brooklyn, then I will get back to work on rebuilding the trailer (which is painted! Now I get to use saws and drills... way more fun than painting!) and building the compost sifter... busy week! Then I'll be off to Portland, ME where I am looking forward to some fabulous restaurants and catching up with a friend from back in the day.

*gasp* Pictures! (finally!)

I finally got new batteries for my camera (it's been sitting unused so long in my mom's garage that it doesn't hold a charge anymore) and took a few snapshots of Farm #1 here in lovely Vermont. dang this place is pretty! I love it here.
There are chickens of all colors, including one white one that likes to hop the fence and last year lived in the bushes most of the summer! Now it hops willy-nilly over the fence when it feels like going for a stroll or coming home to roost. Luckily it hasn't taught the others to hop the fence yet. She doesn't seem to wander far, I've seen her walking around the fence a few times, generally in close proximity to the chicken tractor.
There are a few yaks on Farm #1, supposedly they run really fast but I haven't seen them run yet. I'm not about to try to coax them into doing it :P I saw one of them shke his (her?) tail and it's covered in long black hair. As the sun is coming out today and the weather is supposed to be in the 80s next week I feel bad for these animals that are built for high elevations and winter! I'm sure they didn't mind the long winter :)

Vermont, could you be any purdier?

Lavender is also in bloom. I passed by some yesterday walking down the driveway, the smell was intoxicating. It made me want to crumple a handful and rub it all over my hands and arms! Summer is awesome.


With my camera working, I can also document my projects! Hooray! Here is the trailer refurbishment so far:

Trailer after removing all the wood.

Trailer after first coat of black paint. It takes 24 hours before you can apply the second coat so it looks like I will be finishing the painting tomorrow... no sense in scrubbing off all the black paint on my arms, legs and hands tonight! It's like I'm an AmeriCorps all over again!

My other projects include the roatary compost sieve which I will get started on laying out tomorrow after painting; we picked up materials Tuesday. I kind of like the planning ahead that is required for trips to any kind of shop when you are in a rural area. It forces you to be more efficient with your time and fuel. In the suburbs if you forget something it's just (at least it was for me) a few minutes drive back to the store and I never really thought about the fuel required for those extra trips, or trips for a single item. Another project is to design a yak shelter, I won't have time to build it so they will find someone else to construct it, but it will be good for the yaks to have some shade when the peak of summer arrives. They are pretty much stuck wearing a sweater under a puffy fuzzy jacket with a broken zipper. They sure are cute though :) Time to peel myself from the interwebs and get to reading and, speaking of which, figuring out if I can wait to go to the grocery store til tomorrow when Dan has to go anyway... I have already spend $260 on gas in the last 30 days... It's probably a good idea to wait til tomorrow :D

Rural Life at Farm #1

I've been so busy! It's been quite cloudy and I don't have watch so I have been working based on when I'm hungry or exhausted. My days have been getting longer, first I worked 5 hours and yesterday I worked 7 hours. I learned how to prep a gravel spreader for winter, used a steam pressure washer to clean off the trailer I'm refurbishing, learned how to mount a snow plow onto the truck and learned a bit about 2-stroke engines. Exhausting and awesome day! Then after dinner we played Agricola... so far, loving rural life here on Farm #1!

On Tuesday we had a night on the town, we went to Rutland, VT and ate at Roots. I had a cocktail made with a liquor called ROOTS, which tastes like rootbeer, mixed with a vanilla vodka... it tasted just like a cream soda! I had to remove the straw to make sure I didn't drink it too fast :P Roots is vegetarian and gluten-free friendly with several options for the GF and Veg crowd. Not too many vegan options, there was cheese on or with pretty much everything. I had beet salad (delicious!) and carrot ginger soup and a big bowl of fries... so good! After dinner we walked over to the movie theatre and saw Bridesmaids. It was way funnier than I expected! After the movie we went to the grocery store where I got most of the things I need to make a vegan mac and "cheese" for dinner Friday when we have some friends coming up for a little party weekend. Yay friends! Boardgames will be played (but not too many), countryside will be taken in on foot, and good food will be had. (I've been requested to make marshmallows and we've been talking about making them with maple syrup and coating them in bacon... sounds amazing to me!)

Today the plan is to paint the trailer then I will go to the grocery store (luckily only 15 minutes away... in NY!) and get the things I forgot on Tuesday. (I was playing Plants vs Zombies online instead of making a grocery list, I kicked myself when I was at the store cause I forgot some key things!) I'd also like to read some of this book Dan showed me, The Vertical Farm because I am very interested in urban agriculture (in fact went to landscape architecture school... for one semester... because I really wanted to learn more about it but that's another story!)

Time to carpe diem!

Day one working on Farm #1 (in VT)

Last night This morning is was beautifully bright in my room so I woke up at 7:30am... when I checked and saw the time I thought "no one else is up yet, I'm going back to sleep!" I then proceeded to sleep until 10:30... oops! I'm sure I needed those extra 3 hours though. Last night we played Settlers of America, a new version of Settlers of Catan, I won! It was a fun game, very dynamic and will be fun to play again now that we got the first learning game out of the way.

After a quick breakfast of pear, sauteed kale and chopped up fresh radish (veggies purchased at the Dorest farmer's market in the rain yesterday), I got a tour of the farm equipment and talked about the compost sieve we're going to make. Did some google searches, watched some YouTube videos and started sketching! Tomorrow Dan and I will go pick up materials for the compost trommel sifter which is based on these two different designs: electric, manual. After sketching and figuring it out I ate a bit more (peanut butter mixed with honey on graham crackers, so yummy!) and wanted to do more work! Figuring we'll be drviing to the hardware store and lumber yard tomorrow I decided to get started removing the rotten wood from a trailer Dan bought recently. The frame is pretty decent, a little rusty, but the wood is all rotted through and in need of an overhaul. Dan set me up with a grinder and the appropriate safety gear and i went to work cutting through 24 lag bolts. Sparks flying, smell of sulfur in the air, back hurting from lack of physical labor lately... it was great! Then after throwing the ball for the Collies a bit (they take a lot of wearing down in order to have them be calm once they are inside) I came in to take a shower, figure out dinner and see what board game we'll play tonight! So far, I'm having a great time! Dan even lent me a book to read while I'm here about Vertical Farming, something I've very interested in, and I'm sharing my Root Cellar book which I have in preparation for the project at Farm #2 (MN) in which I will be building a root cellar (with help from many people, I would hate to have to build it alone!)