Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down…

This year, signs of fall started appearing in our part of Vermont around early September: splashes of colored leaves in the trees, the apple orchard open for business, the grocery store’s Back-to-School display gradually giving way to Halloween. The sunlight turned a deeper gold, and the nights became crisp enough to sleep under the comforter. As the month wore on, squirrels and chipmunks got busy in our yard laying aside acorns for the winter – and driving our dog to fits of frenzied barking at the windows. Channeling my own inner chipmunk, I started baking like a maniac.

The last week of September was glorious: the mountaintops were red-orange, and driving home each afternoon I felt like I was living inside a scenic Vermont calendar. Tour buses full of “leaf peepers” pulled into town; tour groups of fluorescent-spandexed bikers made driving backcountry roads an exercise in caution. The foliage wasn’t quite at its peak, but clearly we were in for some spectacular color over the next couple of weeks.

On October 2, I woke up and noticed that there were leaves covering the ground.

[Cue sound effect: brakes squealing as my fall euphoria turned to realism]. Oh, right…RAKING.

Click here to continue reading about the complexities of leaf removal in my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

One Evening in Late September

Our family rarely goes out to eat these days. It’s not so much a matter of expense (although that’s certainly a factor with six mouths to feed); the expense of eating out is counterbalanced by the benefit of having a break from cooking. My economist husband would put it in terms of “opportunity cost:” a few extra dollars may be worth it if it saves you the time, energy and stress of preparing a meal.

No, we eat at home because taking four young children to a restaurant sounds something like this: “Okay, we’re leaving in TWO minutes! Get on your shoes, everyone. Get on your shoes! Where are your shoes?!? Into the car! C’mon, we’re leaving! Into the car!!! NO, you can’t have your sister’s car seat if she wants to sit in it! NO, you can’t have a snack, because we’re going to dinner! Sit DOWN!”

And that’s all before we’ve left the driveway. In terms of opportunity cost, by the time the evening is over I may as well have cooked a banquet.

But one Friday night in late September, our family went out for dinner at Sama’s Café in Middlebury. Click here to continue reading this latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Jump in a Lake

One of my favorite things about living in Vermont is that my daughters have become lake swimmers.

I was raised with the belief that the world is divided into two types of people: lake people and ocean people. My mother, who grew up spending summers at her family’s camp on New Hampshire’s Merrymeeting Lake, is a lake person. My father, who grew up escaping industrial Lawrence, Massachusetts, by packing into a car with friends and heading for the New Hampshire beaches, is an ocean person. Since as a daughter it was my job to reject everything relating to my mother, I grew up proclaiming myself an ocean person.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Traffic in Vermont?

When we first moved to Vermont, my husband noticed something unusual about the news coverage on our local NPR affiliate: there was never any traffic report. To compensate, the weather forecast often ran as long as ten minutes.

Continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Kindergarten and Community

My oldest daughter begins kindergarten at our town’s public elementary school next week, so last spring I attended the school’s “Parent Information Night.” More than anything else in the past five years, attending a kindergarten information night made me feel like a grown up, like a MOM, …old. It’s one thing to have children and be responsible for their upbringing; it’s another thing to sit on plastic chairs in a stuffy music room and realize that you’re about to become part of an entirely new community: a school community, with its teachers and administrators and volunteer commitments and dates-to-remember.

Click here to continue reading at The Addison Independent.

Weather or Not…

I have tried to avoid writing about the weather this summer. Growing up, my mother watched the weather forecast the way other people watch the stock market or sports box scores: She hung on every detail, and if the actual weather failed to conform to the forecast, it was met with amazement bordering on disbelief. Despite this exciting first exposure to weather, the climate has always struck me as a dull topic. Most people talk about the weather when they’ve run out of anything else to discuss – with the possible exceptions of religion and politics.

But I’m sorry, I’ve held off long enough and I’m just going to have to do it, because what the HECK has been up with the weather this summer?!?

Click here to continue reading about what the heck has been up with the weather, over at The Addison Independent.

From Woodchucks to Silage, Your Questions Answered!

I posted this message on Facebook last week:

HELP! Mom of month-old baby with a brain mushy from nighttime feedings seeks inspiration for her bi-weekly column on Vermont life. Sooooo: Anything you’d like to see written about Vermont? Any unanswered Vermont questions? Anything Vermont-related keeping you up at night? I’ll entertain any ideas!

My desperate plea generated more responses than I’d expected; unresolved Vermont issues are apparently keeping some people up at night.

Click here to continue reading in The Addison Independent.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Be Patriotic

I’m part of Generation X. I don’t do patriotic, or nostalgic. I grew up in the era of MTV, “Greed is good,” and the Internet explosion. My generation had it easy, so we’re often (rightly) considered selfish, cynical, and apathetic. For most of my life, the U.S. government has done embarrassing things in public, which tends to discourage a sense of national pride. What was there to be proud of?

To find out, continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Indpendent.

Born in Vermont

This Father’s Day, the Gong family did our part to increase Vermont’s native population: at 3:30 AM, our fourth daughter, Abigail Esther, was born at Porter Hospital’s Birthing Center in Middlebury.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent, about our experience giving birth in a small-town hospital.

Over-sharing

I was at Ilsley Library with my daughters, when we ran into a friend whose daughter attends preschool with our middle child, Campbell. We greeted each other, and then she spoke directly to my two-year-old, Georgia. “Georgia, is it true what I hear?” she asked, “Did you really throw all your mommy’s makeup into the toilet?”

Apparently Campbell had been over-sharing at preschool again.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.