VERMONT--OCTOBER 13-15TH

After breakfast of coffee, oatmeal, and fruit, and after Phil & Lois instructed us as to our route, Sarah and I set off in the rental car for Sonja's house in Jericho, Vermont--I driving and Sarah navigating with a marked-up paper map. We'd planned to shorten our route a bit and to avoid both Providence and Boston by taking Route 3 north, but somehow without our GPS we got turned around and spent some time getting back on route. Thank goodness that Sarah--as she did to Phil & Lois's house--remembered the last small roads to Jericho, and Peter & Sonja's place.

Brother Peter had died at 80 years old on April 12, 2021, just after Jeff and I moved from Oklahoma to Utah. Sonja is alone now, but she has her children, Andrew and Rebecca, and a large support group made of friends, relatives and the many individuals she and Peter welcomed: foreign exchange students, fresh air kids, foster children, Russian farmers, Hmong immigrants, 4-H kids and  many others. 

Our visit with Sonja was a good one. Sonja is a strong, quiet woman and she is deftly managing the large Jericho property and its big garden, as well as attending her knitting and hobby groups and keeping up with her friends and the many individuals she and Peter had fostered or mentored over the years.

As a matter of fact, just after Sarah and I left to return to Rhode Island, Sonja flew to Florida to attend Oscar Mejia's 50th birthday celebration. They had years previously flown to Columbia to Oscar's wedding. Oscar had come to them as a Columbian exchange student when he was16 and he celebrated his 17th birthday with them. Peter & Sonja's daughter, Rebecca, and Oscar are just a month apart in age.

After our arrival at Sonja's, we both got settled in our respective downstairs rooms, I in Former Russian Exchange Student Yana's old room, and Sarah in Sonja's sewing room. Both Sonja and Lois are expert seamstresses and have large sewing rooms equipped with the latest in sewing machines, fabrics, thread, measuring tables, storage, etc. The two meet each year and enjoy a day of fabric shopping. In fact they got together mid-November and declared that they were now equipped for Christmas projects.

The bed in my room had a beautiful fall-colored patchwork quilt on it that Sonja had sewn. As I was hanging up my duds, Sonja and Sarah, suddenly yelled: "Susan come quick! Susan come quick! Bears! Bears!" I raced upstairs to find the two at the large kitchen window, excitedly pointing to a mama black bear and three cubs crossing the lawn and drive to an apple tree.

We all snapped off many cell pix, but the bears were about 40 or 50 feet from us and the window reflected the fridge and things on the table before the window, so none of our pix came out well.

Mama bear and two of her cubs crossing the driveway to the apple tree.
Sorry about the reflection in the window of the refrigerator door and the basket on the table.

The three black bear cubs in the apple tree. 

Mama bear returning to the woods; think she heard us because she is looking our way.

Eventually the Mama bear wandered back across the drive and lawn and into the woods. Two of the cubs followed her but the third didn't want to leave the feast so stayed in the upper part of the tree eating its fill of apples.  (We were all worried that it would get out so far on the small branches that it would fall.) 

When  the cub eventually did come down, I had grabbed a pair of binoculars. The cub had an apple in its mouth but it flopped down on its belly and dropped the apple between its paws. Then it played with the apple like a kitten, rolling it under its chin, batting it back and forth with its paws, and nuzzling it. Finally it got up and crossed the drive (sans apple) to the woods to find its siblings and mother.

The Mama and cubs returned again later that evening.

Sonja reported that she had seen a three-point buck and a doe whitetailed deer at the apple tree before we pulled in. All this wildlife made me nostalgic for our Oklahoma home from which we watched much wildlife on our deck or in our yard each year: raccoons, opossums, deer, wild turkeys, bobcats, coyotes, squirrels, roadrunners, owls, armadillos, etc. So far in Utah we have seen from our house only black-throated hummingbirds, chickadees, scrub jays, black-billed magpies, and the neighbors' cats and dogs.

A bobcat on our Oklahoma deck

We ate dinner on TV trays that evening and watched a video--what we ate and what we watched I cannot now remember. Both Sonja and Lois are exceptional cooks, so I am sure it was delicious.

OCTOBER 14
The next morning Sonja drove us to Middlebury, VT, where we had lunch on the porch of a popular restaurant near Otter Creek Falls, visited several of the downtown craft shops, and walked this picturesque area, home of Middlebury College. Jeff and I had once shopped in Middlebury when students at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English . . . waaay back in the late 1960s.

Sonja and Susan posing with a deer sculpture outside Edgewater Art Gallery at the Falls.

Sarah and Sonja posing with a lion sculpture outside Edgewater Art Gallery at the Falls

I love to tell the story of shopping with Sonja in Middlebury's Ski House in 1970 when Sonja was pregnant with her first child, son Andrew. Sonja, as you can see from the photos, is a petite woman with blonde hair and an open countenance. She was shopping several racks from me when a woman  approached, nudged me, and whispered, "Tsk, tsk! Look at that! They're having babies younger and younger these days." I delighted in telling the woman that "that" was my sister-in-law and she was 26 years old. Peter was equally delighted years later when Sonja ordered a beer and was asked for her i.d. and carded . . . in her 50s!

After our lunch and stroll about Middlebury, Sonja drove us to Bread Loaf School of English, eleven miles away. Jeff and I had earned our masters and graduated from Bread Loaf in 1971. On August 9, 1969, Jeff and I were married by the college chaplain in Bread Loaf's Blue Parlor. After our vows, we hosted a wedding brunch at the Waybury Inn at the foot of the mountain. 

Waybury Inn where Jeff and I hosted our post-wedding luncheon

I should have gotten closer: the small lettering on the sign reads, "Public Dining, Catering, Pub"

The Waybury Inn was used to depict the Stratford Inn in “The Bob Newhart Show.” In that show, Bob and his wife decide to leave their hectic life in New York City and buy a beautiful inn in Vermont. To the “delight” of the Waybury’s owners: “Hollywood came knocking at the Waybury Inn's door. They thought that the Inn captured the essence of the Vermont experience and wanted to depict us as Bob's own Stratford Inn!" Remember the line from that show? “I’m Larry. This is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl.”

The colors of the mountains and leaves in Vermont at this time of year were almost overwhelming. Whole hillsides were shades of orange, red, pink and yellow. 

This photo might make a colorful fabric design I think.

When we arrived at the Bread Loaf campus, memories came flooding back.

Sarah and Sonja on the Bread Loaf Inn porch. Before dinner each evening, we would change into our "cocktail" clothes and gather with the faculty on this porch for pre-dinner drinks and a social get together.

Sarah and Sonja posing on the Bread Loaf Inn porch before its trademark sign. It was so named because it stands before Bread Loaf Mountain (below). The inn contained a reception desk, lobby, the Blue Parlor where Jeff and I said our vows, and a great kitchen and dining room where students served as wait staff to reduce their tuition and all students and faculty gathered for meals. The second and third floors served as rooms for single male students.

 Bread Loaf Mountain for which the English School was named. It does not look it in this Internet photo, but when we were there it was aglow in fall colors.

We got out of the car to take a photo of me before Birch--married student house where Jeff and I roomed in the years after we married--and immediately Sonja and I spotted Shaggy mane mushrooms poking tall on Birch's lawn. We eagerly picked a bag of them, and when we got back to Sonja's we sautéed them and ate them on crackers whilst dinner was cooking.

Shaggy Mane mushrooms

Edible shaggy mane mushrooms right and in foreground two that are deliquescing, absorbing moisture from the air and rotting; these, of course, are inedible

 

Internet photo of Birch house where Jeff and I roomed. Our room was the two left windows on the third floor.

We then walked the campus, which had expanded since my day, and noted The Bread Loaf Inn, The Little Theater, and the large barn where students could study, read and socialize. One side of the barn also contained the classrooms.

Sarah checking out the signs before the barn entrance. Most were covid regulations and restrictions.

To the  left hiding behind one of many colorful trees, the classroom side of the barn

After our tour of the Bread Loaf campus, we drove down the road a bit past the entrance to the Middlebury College Snow Bowl to Texas Falls. It was here that students would come for picnics and a swim, some of the male students even jumping from the bridge across the gorge. 

Middlebury College Snow Bowl Lodge; our Bread Loaf graduation party was held here, and I "think" I remember dancing drunkenly with one of my professors.

Internet photos of Texas Falls

After our tours (nostalgic for me) of Middlebury, Bread Loaf, and Texas Falls, Sonja drove the back way to her house in Jericho. 

OCTOBER 15

The next morning, after Sonja and Sarah prepared meat and veggies in the slow cooker for a great stew dinner that evening to which Andrew & Sarah and Mike, Yana and Maya were coming, Sonja drove us to the old Ethan Allen homestead museum and a Flax Festival in Burlington.

In the Ethan Allen museum we learned of the Abenaki. Wikipedia: "The Abenaki are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Condfederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was predominantly spoken in Maine, while theWestern Abenaki language was spoken in Quebec, Vermont and New Hampshire. While Abenaki peoples have shared cultural traits, they did not historically have a centralized government. They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare."

Abenaki gardens, craftspeople, and the flax festival were spread out on the spacious lawn and garden area behind the small museum. Here we met an Abenaki named Blackhand who was making beautifully carved spoons and ladles of different woods. Then we visited flower gardens, entered the original Ethan Allen homestead, and learned about how flax was prepared for weaving into linen.

Me exiting the original Ethan Allen homestead

Interior view of Ethan Allen homestead

Homestead kitchen 

Sonja and Susan before the homestead zinnia garden

Sarah and Sonja before the zinnia garden with the gorgeous orange-leafed tree in background

After we'd toured the homestead, we went to the Flax Festival which was being held in another area of the homestead lawn. We learned that flax was made into linen thread through several processes. The first big surprise for me was that flax was made into linen. I knew about retting and scutching from frequent crossword clues, and I knew how to recognize blue-flowered wild flax along the roadside, but had not realized that it and linen were synonymous.

Top left clockwise: Weavers, a carver wearing linen pants and holding one of his carvings,
and a man scutching the flax stems

After our lessons in retting, scutching, combing and weaving flax, we drove to a park along a river that Sonja knew of and took a walk. 

Then we drove to Burlington and Church Street Marketplace, a large pedestrian mall. One could spend the entire day there and not see a tenth of it. We walked past musicians, Vermont's Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Frog Hollow craft shop, Danform shoe shop . . . which reminds me that both days we had stopped at several shoe stores looking for a pair of slip-on shoes for me. I finally bought the pair below. I was seeking waterproof shoes that were easy on and off for the days I volunteer at Tracy Aviary and hose out some of the bird enclosures.

Back at the mall: We were hungry at this point, so sought out a restaurant that did not have a long wait. We settled on Henry's Diner, Est. 1925, not a ritzy looking place but one without long lines. We were the last patrons in before they closed for the afternoon. I ordered hash with poached eggs and was a happy camper. Can't recall what Sonja and Sarah ordered but we emerged from the diner full and filled.

Henry's Diner in the Pedestrian Mall

We had to be back by 3:30 because we were expecting Andrew & his wife, Sarah, and Mike & Yana, and their daughter Maya for dinner, so at 3:something we headed back to Jericho. On the way home, I made a bet that the black bears would be at the apple tree when we turned into the drive. Sonja and Sarah were not countering . . . but sure enough, when we turned into the drive, there were the bears. They scooted back to the woods. 

Shortly after we arrived home, a car turned into the drive and drove up to the house. Who could that be? we all wondered. Turned out to be an excited guy who wanted to tell us that he had seen the black bears in the drive. Fortunately he was not a hunter. 

We readied the house for company and set the long table for eight. The stew was done to perfection when the two families arrived. For awhile it was pandemonium, all talking excitedly at once, but eventually we found a place to sip wine, eat snacks, sit, and talk. It was so good to be able to talk in person to these relatives and friends whom we hadn't seen in years. Andrew & Sarah's daughter, Sophie, was in Germany as an exchange student so she was the only "piece of the puzzle" missing, but we heard that she was doing fine and enjoying her exchange family.

Me, Andrew & Sarah, Mike, sister Sarah, Sonja, and Maya; Yana taking the photo

Nine-year-old Maya clowning around and demonstrating that she and Sonja are nearly the same height though sixty-nine years apart in age.

OCTOBER 16

We left after breakfast and a tour of the garden and drove back to Phil & Lois's in Tiverton, RI.