Although it’s still summer here in Vermont, we are starting to prepare for winter. It’s been a while since we’ve lived with the drama of four distinct seasons; while I always felt that there were seasons in Northern California, they were subtle and caused few dramatic variations in either wardrobe or lifestyle. Not so in Vermont. The nights are getting cooler, the odd leaf in our yard has already turned red or yellow, and we hear that snow can begin as early as late October. Here are some of the things we’re doing to ready ourselves for the imminent onset of winter:

*Getting a new roof. Although we bought this house understanding that we’d need a new roof in the next 5 years, it quickly became clear that we needed one immediately if we wanted to be spared some serious water leaks once the snow starts. (One roofer who looked at our situation told us that, short of a new roof, our best bet for surviving the winter were plastic tarps).

*Getting a generator. We’ve lost power a couple of times this summer due to heavy thunderstorms. Because we’re far enough outside of town, we’re not on the town water system; our water is pumped up from our own well, and we have our own septic tank. This means that no power = no water. Okay for short periods of time during the summer, but not okay in the middle of winter with three small children.

*Finishing Phase 1 of our painting projects. In fact, this is an activity that we supervised as opposed to participated in; Nana and Boom were just here for a week painting our bedroom as an early birthday gift. This involved some serious carpet-ripping and tearing off wallpaper, but the results are amazing. To give you an idea, here is the original bedroom with dark blue wallpaper and blue wall-to-wall carpet:

And here is our bedroom today:

*Thinking about re-graveling our driveway….

*Stockpiling firewood. Thankfully we’ve got a rugged junior lumberjack to help with that.

*Buying these at Junebug, an amazing local children’s clothing resale store:

*Fattening ourselves up on freshly-baked brownies.

We’ve been busy. But it’s not all work and no play around here. There are afternoon snacks out on the deck….

The girls had a blast at the Addison County Fair and Field Days….

And we enjoyed an idyllic boat trip around Lake Champlain with Nana and Boom:

We’ll be sad to see summer come to an end, but we’re looking forward to Fall — we hear it’s spectacular up here.

So if you’re thinking of visiting us, don’t delay! The snow is coming….