I awoke this morning to the hush that comes with a few inches of new snow. I slept well. I can’t say the same for the night before. What a difference a day can make.

Last weekend’s mild temperatures encouraged me to hang the sap buckets for an early start on the season. Bare ground showed through on south-facing sections of the meadows. No snowshoes necessary this year. We had a good run and were boiling by Monday, putting up the first batch of 2010’s maple crop.

Tuesday’s forecast called for snow. When low pressure sits in the Gulf of Maine we never know how much to expect. The flakes fell steadily through Tuesday evening. More than a foot covered the ground by first light the next day. There was no sign of things letting up. I decided to fire up the tractor to begin clearing snow off the road before the temperature rose, bringing with it the potential for impossible plowing. Heavy, wet snow does not move easily.

I spent the better part of the day grading the snow aside. With each pass along the half-mile stretch that connects us with the plowed town road, an inch or more of new snow covered my previous tracks. By mid afternoon the snows were very wet and I’d run out of room to put it. Any more plowing would have simply constrained the roadway to a width through which the truck would not fit. All I could do was hope that the storm was winding down. As a precaution, I moved the truck down to the flats below. At day’s end on Wednesday more than two feet of new snow stood on the meadows and atop the sap buckets. It wouldn’t last for long.

Thursday dawned with light snow falling but it soon turned to rain – lots of it, but the worst part of the storm was yet to come.

The forecast for Thursday night came with a wind advisory. As with the snow from a Nor’easter, it is not always easy to predict how much. I went to bed without giving it much thought. Earlier breezes had shaken the heavy, wet snow from the trees, erasing my concerns about the weight bringing down limbs. (Gypsy sits on the edge of a meadow alongside a row of very tall, old maples.)

I was awakened by the wind at midnight. Wind, and the sound of tree limbs crashing to the ground. I tried just lying there, thinking, “What can I do about it, anyway?”

That didn’t work. After an hour I went downstairs to get a better look around. Bands of clouds raced at high speed from east to west across the face of a nearly full moon. Treetops were in full motion. The roar of the wind coming over the hilltops to the east gave warning to each coming blast. Hold on. The house shook with the force of the wind hitting its side. My gaze remained fixed on the greenhouse, a seemingly fragile structure in the face of such a powerful force. I fully expected to be watching as a gust tore it from its moorings and kited it across the orchard meadow below.

More trees were crashing to the ground. I couldn’t see where they fell from the vantage inside the house. I made a brief dash out to grab two buckets that were tumbling along the path after being blown from the porch. Back inside, I began worrying about Marion, still sleeping in the loft. (I envy her ability to do that.) What if one of those maples came down on the roof. Wouldn’t the first floor offer more protection?

I woke Marion at 1:15. I turned on the computer and began poring over National Weather Service charts. The pressure gradient was deep and we were in the quadrant with the strongest winds. How long can this low sit here?

The storm was tracking slowly to the west. Talking with Marion helped take my mind off the roar of the wind and the crashing of tree limbs outside. The nearest airport, 35 miles away, was recording winds near 40 mph, but they are more sheltered down in the Connecticut River valley than we are on this mountainside. I turned next to Mt. Washington – the other extreme. The White Mountains to our east would be bearing the full force of the storm. Hurricane force winds buffeted their peaks. Winds atop Mt Washington were in excess of 120 mph. While not hurricane force here at the house an occasional strong blast blowing through had enough force to ring the heavy bronze ship’s bell that hangs from the porch. That’s not going to help me sleep.

I kept refreshing the National Weather Service web page as real-time data points collected in the wind speed column. When’s it going to peak?

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to attempt sleep again until I saw a reversal in the trend. Finally, at 3 a.m. the velocities began to dip and at 3:30 we crawled back to bed.

By morning nearly half of the previous day’s snow had been erased by the rain and the wind. I went out to survey the damage. The greenhouse was standing and no limbs had fallen through its roof. Good. Next, I looked to the lean-to shed that we use to shelter various things adjacent to where the new equipment shed will go. Still there. Good. Its tarp roof had not held up to the gusts, but the structure was intact. The outhouse remained standing strong. Really good.

The orchard was littered with small branches that had blown from the tops of the tall maples. Several dead limbs had been shaken loose, too, and lay on the ground. The scene very much told the story of the night preceding, but no major damage had come to the home or outbuildings nearby.

I spent the day on Friday in a bleary-eyed state, picking up limbs off the road, recovering and reaffixing nearly half of the sap bucket lids that had been shaken loose and blown off by the storm. The sun shone. Temperatures warmed. Sap flowed. What a difference a day can make.

Punxsutawney Phil never seems to get it right. Nor can I. I can never remember if that old groundhog’s shadow means more winter or less. A more reliable indicator of the season’s transition is the plink, plink, plink sound of sap droplets falling to the bottom of a bucket on warming winter days. Yesterday, the afternoon temps reached the upper 30’s. We spent the morning picking up our new evaporator and setting it up near the woodpile (hmmm, is a sugarhouse somewhere in future plans?). The snow was soft and spring-like under foot. We decided it was time to set the first spout. Late in the afternoon we drilled one of last year’s best producing maples. Sap began flowing down the trunk of the tree before I even hammered in the spile. Plink, plink, plink. With the first bucket hung, the sap was flowing at more than 150 drips per minute. Time to put other projects on the back burner, it’s sugarin’ time!

Yesterday, I finished the braces for the equipment shed frame. Thirty-four of them are now stacked neatly alongside the finished posts and tie beams. In the coming week I’ll start on the floor joists and finally the rafters. The top plates will be the last pieces cut as they will not fit inside the greenhouse and I’ll wait for warmer outdoor temperatures before cutting their joints. (The top plates consist of an 18-foot beam and a 12-foot beam connected by a scarf joint for a resultant 30-foot length. Three of them run the length of the building, holding the bents together at 10-foot spacing.)

As I see the stack of what was once rough cut timber being transformed into a life-sized collection of Lincoln Logs I’ve been experiencing mixed emotions. There is the satisfaction of seeing the posts and beams displaying freshly cut mortises and tenons – the shop drawings come to life. There is also the anxiety that creeps in whenever I think about the fact that I’m placing complete faith in my human capacity to implement mathematical calculations that have no tolerance for error. There is the potential (the doubting side of me frets) for bringing all the pieces together on raising day and discovering that a mistake or a series of mistakes have been made that can potentially render the entire stack of posts, beams, and braces unusable – a nightmare, indeed.

The advent of computer aided design software in recent decades has made the mathematical calculations far easier than the longhand methods employed by timber framers in years gone by. Pythagoras is a name that I associate with high school geometry, but his theorem, along with many others, now hide within the code of the Google SketchUp program I used to lay out the building plans. Pointing and clicking on the contemporary drawing board, I convert the overall plan into individual shop drawings – one for each component of the frame.

Once in the shop, the process of laying out the joints in the timber begins with an inspection of the beam. Considerations include the run of the grain, the location of knots, and crown. Once I’ve determined the orientation I’ll use, the sides are labeled and the joints laid out by either scribe or pencil.

“Measure twice, cut once.” The old adage rings truer than ever when mistakes may not rear their head until much later in the process. I check and double check each mortise and tenon layout. Quite often I’ll have the saw in hand, ready to begin the cut and I’ll stop, grab the tape and measure again.

When I first began working on this project I knew very little about the craft of timber framing. “How hard can it be?” I thought. “It’s a barn, right? Little need for precision, right?”

I’ve learned a lot in recent months! Timber framing is, in many ways, like large-scale furniture building and, yes, precision matters.

Brace mortises (above) present the least tolerance for error. A sixteenth of an inch difference in their positions can have an impact on the ultimate trueness of the frame. No pressure, Kevin. You won’t know for sure until spring.

Day by day, wood is removed. Corners are squared. Shoulders are planed. Final measurements are checked. Another piece takes shape and is returned to the stack.

At first I worried whether the software was generating correct numbers. I double-checked using longhand until I was satisfied. The math is correct. I won’t know about the human translation until fitting the pieces in the spring. I wish I weren’t so prone to worry.

It’s been nearly two weeks since our last trip off the mountain. My days have found routine in the equipment shed project. With settled weather and lengthening days I’m able to work for seven or eight hours a day, from the time the sun first rises over the treetops, until the pencil lines on wooden surfaces begin to fade in the diminishing evening light.

There is great peace to be found in my immediate surroundings. The snow-covered meadows and forests are so very hushed in winter. Rather than working in silence, however, I’ve chosen to bring my radio into the greenhouse each day. I begin my work while tuned to Tom Ashbrook’s "On Point." Next up, it’s "Vermont Edition", followed by "Here and Now," "The Story," "Fresh Air," and, finally, as I’m cleaning, sharpening and oiling my tools at the end of the day, I catch the first half hour of "All Things Considered."

I can’t help but note the extreme contrast between the winter peace outside my door and the stories the radio delivers from far and away. Haitian earthquake devastation, political senselessness playing out in a feeble and potentially doomed attempt at health care legislation, judicial blunders protecting the free-flow of money between corporate America and the political machine . . .

The magnitude and pace of world events often overwhelm my ability to make sense of it all, if indeed there is any sense to be made.

Here on the mountain, however, the world is at rest and the pace remains steady. Begin the day with a fire for warmth. Listen to the radio news. Coffee. Breakfast. Haul water from the stream. Step into the greenhouse and smell the freshly cut hemlock. One or two timbers per day are transformed into components of a framework that will hopefully stand at the edge of this orchard for centuries to come. It’s a pace and a peace I’m comfortable with.

Last winter, when I made the decision to build an equipment shed, I knew that I was entering new territory. While many of the buildings in my native New England (virtually all homes and barns built prior to 1850) are still supported by timber frames, it was only relatively recently that I came to understand the beauty, strength, and practicality of those old structures. Despite the efforts of revivalists that began reintroducing the art of timber framing in the 1970’s I had never taken the time to sort out the difference between a tie beam and a summer beam, never mind the nuances of scribe rule vs. square rule, common rafters vs. principal rafters, etc.

With my admitted lack of experience in the craft, I deemed the proposed equipment shed a suitable “practice” building, on which I’d sort out the necessary skills before taking on the larger primary barn that has been on the drawing board for the past couple of years.

So, we now have a stack of hemlock timbers under cover alongside Gypsy and the greenhouse has become a makeshift woodworking shop. The time to begin cutting the timbers for the first bent had arrived. Almost.

I needed a solid surface on which to place the timbers while carving the mortise and tenon joints. An ordinary set of sawhorses would not do. These timbers are heavy – hundreds of pounds apiece for the longer ones. I needed a set of stoutly built framing ponies. Besides, I reckoned, they could be “practice” before tackling the equipment shed. Hmmm. Will that barn ever be built?

Among the first lessons of the timber framer is one of patience. In contrast with the contemporary “stick-built” or “balloon framed” buildings that were adopted en mass during the latter 1800’s, a timber frame is the domain of the skilled craftsmen. Here on our land in Tunbridge, however, my apprenticeship will be a solitary affair, without the guidance of a master framer. It will take time.

My first 2-inch by 7-inch through mortise took nearly four hours to complete. My first “blind” mortise took two hours and I was initially intimidated by the challenges of fitting braces in mortises cut at 45-degree angles to the timber surface. By the end of a week of work I had cut, fitted, and refined the components of my first pony and was ready to drill and peg the joints together.

There was something very satisfying in the feel of that first 1-inch oak peg being driven through the joint connecting the pony’s base with its upright post. It’s a feeling that doesn’t go away with subsequent connections.

I had set a goal of laying the first timber for the equipment shed atop the ponies by the fist of the new year. On January 1st, 2010, at the end of a two week period (including ample breaks for holiday gatherings with family), I had two ponies solidly standing. Now, the real practice can begin. Giddy-up!

For those who haven’t ventured up the road to Gypsy Rose, this tale of delivery may go unappreciated, but last week's arrival of Marion’s repaired camera via FedEx was a first here on the mountain.

Vermont’s road classification system categorizes all town highways into four classes. Beginning with Class 1, State Highways, and ending with Class 4 that, by definition, “are all other town highways including trails and pent roads.”

Class 4 roads do NOT meet the criteria set out for Class 1 through 3. (Class 3 requires that the road be “negotiable, under normal conditions, all seasons of the year by a standard manufactured pleasure car . . . including but not limited to sufficient surface and base, adequate drainage and sufficient width capable to provide winter maintenance.”)

Traffic is always light on the road that leads to Gypsy. One or two vehicles in a day would be considered heavy traffic during the summer months. Walking, horseback riding and biking are far more common. (Hunting season is the exception, but we won’t get sidetracked with that tale of men and their machines . . . ) Once the snows fall, the sound of a vehicle is not heard, except perhaps for an occasional faint rumble from far away.

During the second week of December we received 10-plus inches of snow. We decided to clear the road to make way for Marion’s departure for a visit to family. (Normally, the Subaru spends the winter months buried under the snows until April and we keep the 4WD truck parked near the junction with the nearest Class 3 plowed road.)

Returning home on a Friday night, I noticed tracks up the lane. “Hunters,” I mumbled, thinking of the damage they’ve done this year. “I’ll sure be glad when the season is over on Sunday!”

The next morning I took a look at the tracks that had come from a vehicle turning around at the entrance to our meadow. Turning back toward the tractor, I peered in disbelief at something that was stuck to the front of the John Deere’s hood. “What’s that?” I puzzled. “It looks like a parking ticket.”

Anyone familiar with these parts would know that a parking ticket is something that’s probably never been seen within 30 miles of our home. What that piece of paper was, however, is something that this piece of land has NEVER seen.

Friday, December 11th was a first. FedEx had attempted to deliver Marion’s camera. A signature was required for the delivery. The tag on the hood of the tractor requested that I sign, stating that another attempt to deliver would be made on Monday, the 14th.

I signed the tag but kept it indoors over the weekend. More snow piled up outside. On Monday morning I walked back to the tractor at the edge of the road and reattached the FedEx delivery tag to the hood. Throughout the day we found ourselves pausing from the routine.

“Was that a vehicle I heard?”

Darkness fell and no delivery truck had arrived. Time to call FedEx and schedule an alternate pick-up. I walked back to the tractor to get the tag, assuming it would have phone numbers printed on it. To my surprise, the tag was missing. Hanging from one of the hydraulic cylinders on the front-end loader was a plastic bag. A box was suspended in the bag. FedEx delivers.

Two days later, I received a call from UPS. They had a package addressed to me. The woman on the phone explained to me that the driver had balked because “the road didn’t look too well traveled.”

“Tell him to leave it at the post office in town,” I responded. “That’s what I’m used to.”

FedEX 1, UPS 0.

Two months ago (mid-October) I began wrapping up my work at Local Motion in order to focus on the rapidly expanding list of things that had to be done before winter arrives at the Tunbridge homestead. There were all the usual tasks like tilling the garden (which we’ve expanded to twice the size of last summer’s), stacking and covering the woodpile, etc. There was also the annual ritual of hauling Raven and getting her winterized on her cradle at Shelburne Shipyard (nearly a week’s worth of work in itself, beginning on November 6th this year). The big project for the fall, however, was making preparations for the building of the 20’x30’ equipment shed (the first of two barns we have planned).

The first order of business was hauling the timber 80 miles from the mill in North Hyde Park, Vermont. That was no small feat. Nearly 3,000 board feet of green eastern hemlock weighs in at, well, a lot! (by my estimate, around 8 tons!)

Compounding the transport, which involved 3 loads of 5000-plus pounds apiece on a borrowed trailer, was the fact that heavy wet snow was falling when I awoke on that mid-October day at my sister’s house (home of the borrowed trailer) and headed off to the mill. When I arrived at the land in Tunbridge with the first bundle aboard, there were two inches of sloppy, slick snow atop the equally slick layer of wet leaves on the meadows. With all that weight, I nearly ended up with the entire load – truck and all – inside the greenhouse after I lost traction and slid the final 10 feet (forward and sideways at the same time) to where I’d ultimately unload.

Unloading the heavy timbers alone was a test of my aging body and applied physics. Utilizing fulcrums to their fullest, I off-loaded and stacked timbers that weighed a few hundred pounds apiece before returning for another load.

It’s been a tough couple of years for the building materials trades. Sawmills are no exception. While looking for a source of timber for this project it seemed as if the mills were going out of business faster than I could get to them with an order. Eventually, I found Dennis Heath at M.B. Heath & Sons in North Hyde Park, Vermont. The mill has been in business for nearly seventy years. Dennis and his entire crew are terrific folks to do business with, but he, too, is worried about the future. Going heavily into debt to try and ride out the downturn, he told me that if they can get through the coming winter he thinks they can make it. I wish them well and hope to see them when I return for more wood in the spring.

Next came the cement – over five thousand pounds of it (two trips with the trailer). I moved each 80-pound bag of cement mix four times on its way to the mixer.

Let’s see. That totals 20,000 pounds of lifting before adding water to it. Then came the shoveling of the whole lot into the forms! Combine that with the 30,000 pounds of hefting timbers (each one lifted twice) and I was pretty well spent by the time the foundation was complete. Thankfully, Marion had the foresight to stock up on Vitamin I (ibuprofen) before I tackled the work.

As I raced against the clock, the early taste of winter we’d experienced while I hauled the timbers gave way to a glorious November. We had plenty of warm (relative), dry weather during which our neighbor, Rich, was able to haul in the seven loads of fill we needed to backfill and level the site.

Winter finally arrived with a powerful storm last week. In addition to the snow, we had three days of powerful winds, gusting to hurricane force in many locations. A tree limb narrowly missed going through the roof of the greenhouse, instead glancing off the back wall and tearing an eight-inch hole in the skin.

As I write this entry, the snow is falling again, adding to the 10 inches we received last week. The timbers have all been sorted, stickered, stacked, and covered. During the next three months, I’ll take each piece, one at a time, into the greenhouse (workshop) where I’ll cut the various mortises, tenons, scarf joints and rafter pockets that will hold the frame together when we raise the barn next spring.

“Where did the summer go?” Yes, it’s an overused cliché but nonetheless is a question oft-asked here in northern New England. Vermont summers are glorious, intense, and, in looking back from the perspective of autumn, all too brief.

The season’s work at Local Motion geared up, so to speak, in mid-May. As with any seasonal operation, staffing is an on-going challenge. This year I hired the best ever, though. Marion, always the reliable companion, joined the team. Side-by-side (or seated one behind the other on a new cruiser-style tandem) we spent the majority of our summer hours facilitating the bicycling experiences of the thousands who passed through the Trailside Center on Burlington’s waterfront.

Raven (remember Raven?) was launched on May 6th. Our sailing hours were limited this year, due in part to an extremely wet and cold summer, but we often commuted to work aboard our floating home. She remains a solid, trustworthy vessel that is deserving of the many compliments we receive from boaters around the lake.

On Thursday nights we traveled to Gypsy Rose in Tunbridge and worked the land until our Monday morning return to Lake Champlain. Despite a frustratingly wet, cold summer, we enjoyed a bumper crop of maple syrup, berries, and apples.

With so much to do, it was often difficult to slow down and take a break but we did make time for visits from family. My parents (above) proved quite intrepid and made two trips this summer up our unmaintained dirt road.

Vermont farmers rely on three cuttings of hay to feed the livestock through the winter. The summer of 2009 was a tough one with limited opportunities for the necessary drying before baling. Sunny, blue days were a rarity. Someday we hope to use the hay from our meadows to feed animals but, for now, I mow the hay and leave it on the fields.

As if there weren't already enough going on, PaddleWays continues, albeit with limited programming compared with past years. The summer of 2009 marked the 14th year I’ve done the University of Vermont’s Wilderness Orientation TREK program in which I take two groups of 12 students for a six-day adventure on Lake Champlain. In the photo above, the trailer is loaded with boats and ready for the journey to the launch.

Our garden suffered from a very limited growing season this year. We had 25 degrees on June 1st and a hard, killing frost on September 14th. The short season, combined with cool days and way too much rain left many of the crops struggling to produce. To make matters worse, the tomato plants that were heavy with fruit in August succumbed to the blight and were lost in a matter of days. Sadly, we pulled all the plants after only harvesting a few dozen fruit.

Vermont farmers worried about the ability to feed cows during the coming winter with corn crops that were plagued with wet feet and not enough sun. Our few rows of sweet corn did not yield the first ripened ears until after the coming of our mid-September frost, but when it came it was oh-so-good! We plan to dedicate a much larger portion of the meadow to corn in 2010.

The garden has since been put to rest and I hope to fit in time to till the soil before the earth freezes for the winter. Our first snow fell on October 13th (story to follow with the next entry). Over the course of the next few weeks, Marion and I will be transitioning back to Tunbridge. Raven will be hauled on November 6th and we’ll settle into Gypsy full-time for another winter on the land.

We built the greenhouse last winter for the combined purposes of growing vegetables and providing a covered work space in which I could work on building projects out of the weather. At the time, we considered building two more of them – one to house our tractor and implements, and another to provide shelter for the fleet of boats I use for my business. Rather than covering them with greenhouse film as we’d done with the first frame, we decided on opaque tarps for the two buildings.

While pondering where to site the additional structures, I decided that I didn’t like the idea of temporary tarped shelters multiplying across the landscape. I abandoned the thought in favor of a more permanent consolidated solution – a timber framed equipment shed.

Our long-range plans include the construction of a 24’ x 36’ Monitor barn that will include a bunkhouse, a woodworking shop, and storage space. That larger project will undoubtedly be a couple years distant, but I worried that an equipment shed could become redundant once the barn is completed. A closer look at what we’d originally planned for the barn revealed that our space needs are more than I’d originally thought. (A dozen and a half seventeen to twenty-foot boats take up a lot of space!)

When factoring the storage costs we’ve incurred since Marion’s move to Vermont last year we realized that the payback will be less than two years if we add a loft to the equipment shed that we can begin using before the barn is complete. An additional benefit of the shed will be the development of the timber framing skills I’ll need for the larger barn project.

Last February and March I took to the drawing board. I passed many a winter’s hour working through engineering formulas and joinery considerations before coming up with the final design shown in the images above. The plans I came up with are based on 10-foot bays – three wide and two deep – giving the overall structure a footprint of just over 20 x 30 feet. It will be framed and sided with rot-resistant native hemlock and capped with a metal roof.

Given that the six months from May through October are when I earn the majority of my income, it’s hard to predict when we’ll have a completed building, but we broke ground in June with hopes of putting weekend hours into the project between now and when I have more time available in the colder months.

In the process of locating the equipment shed we drew up a site plan for the orchard meadow that includes the future barn project. I’m very pleased with the way the buildings integrate with the trees. I’ve kept the height of the equipment shed to 14 feet at the peak with the intention that it be at an appropriate scale among the trees.

After removing the topsoil and leveling the site we laid out the foundation. The shed will be built on 12 reinforced concrete piers (set below ground) on ten-foot centers.

Last weekend, Marion and I set the pier locations with a series of batter boards from which a grid of mason’s line is stretched. With the location of the lines marked on the batter boards, I can move the lines aside, dig the holes for the forms, then reattach the lines at the marks and center the forms (cardboard tubes).

Time to dig!

We saw 25 degrees on the thermometer on the morning of June 1st. The growing season up here on the mountain is considerably shorter than it is in the Champlain Valley where we grew our vegetables last year. Marion finished planting the garden during the first week of June and, in the photo above, takes a moment to enjoy the late spring sunshine.

To keep the deer and other critters from sharing the harvest we erected a 7-foot fence around the garden using hemlock posts that we harvested from the adjacent forest.

Marion prepares to settle the tomato plants into the earth (above).

We've been mowing the meadows two or three times per summer for the past three years to encourage the grasses. Someday we may return the fields to hay production but that's way down on the list of priorities. For now, we enjoy wildflowers that bloom in abundance.

Today I took a walk through the meadow with a camera to capture a few close-ups.

The Vermont state flower, the red clover, is the most abundant of the mix but white daisies, yellow buttercups, orange and yellow hawkweed, and purple fleabane contribute to the colorful palette.

While marveling at the mix of color and delicate petals (and trying not to disturb the butterflies and bees) I think back to the days when I lived surrounded by neighbors who took pride in their weed-free suburban lawns. I can't help but wonder if those sterile neighborhoods began as fields of color such as the one I enjoy today.

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

~Robert Frost

It's such a brief yet glorious moment in time. The apple blossoms were at the peak of their bloom on May 20th. The delicate white petals last for only about a week before spring winds and rain take them to the ground.

I spent much of the afternoon of May 24th in the orchard. A brief shower had dampened the blossoms before skies returned to blue. Bees worked intensely to complete their job. Hummingbirds joined the effort as I wandered the trees trying to capture images of it all. 

A few days later the ground beneath the trees was sprinkled with white. The bloom is over for another year. We now wait for early signs of fruit in the coming weeks.

Mud season is known as Vermont's "fifth season." This year's softening of the earth brought comments from neighbors claiming, "This was one of the worst."

The 3.5 mile trip down the mountain to the village during late March and early April requires patience. The dirt road's surface changes by the hour as the sunlight draws the frost and moisture out of the frozen depths. The final half-mile up to our land is impassable for four months due to snow and then an additional month on account of the mud. By late March or early April it takes on the feel of wet concrete in a wheelbarrow.

We made the mistake of trying to drive in to the land a couple of weeks earlier than we should have this year and my truck came close to becoming a permanent part of the road. One of the "quick" sections of the stone and sand aggregate tried to swallow us. The truck dropped into the sloppy gravel until the vehicle's underside floated on the road's surface. I didn't even want to think of the work it would have taken to extract the pickup if we'd come to a stop. Keeping on the throttle and holding my breath we clawed our way to firmer ground and vowed we wouldn't be tempted again.

Despite the challenges of mud season, springtime is a busy season of preparation in advance of the land’s annual renewal. After three years of steady effort, we have cleaned up the apple orchard that had suffered from the careless operations of a logging operation under the land’s previous owner. When the land changed to our hands you could not walk amid the two dozen fruit trees in the middle meadow. They were surrounded by the scattered slash (branches and tops of trees that are left behind after a timber cut). The wood does eventually decompose on the forest floor, but in this case the meadows and orchard had been used for preparing the saw logs and depositing the slash. Without cleanup, the meadows and the orchard had been rendered inaccessible for fruit and crop production.

In the top photo I put our small John Deere to the test and skidded the remains of an old fallen sugar maple to its final resting place at the edge of the meadow. At the lower end of the orchard we created two house-sized piles of the remaining slash that will be burned after the first of next winter’s snows blanket the ground.

When the earth begins to come alive again in spring much of the thinking is of gardens to plant and warm days ahead, but it is also the time to put up the next year’s firewood. Gypsy is extremely energy efficient, requiring only a single cord of wood for heating from September through April. There is no shortage of firewood on the land in the form of downed trees. Above, I put a chain on a maple that had fallen across the stream and skidded it to the spot where it will be cut to 12” lengths before being split and stacked for next winter’s use.

One of the downed maples shows good quality wood (lower right in the photo above) that I may spare from the fire and mill it up for the kitchen cabinets yet to be built.

Next came the turning of the earth for our first vegetable garden on the land. The soil is a nice loam but will benefit from the compost that will be added over time. Given our latitude and altitude the danger of frost does not pass until the end of May so we still have time to get a deer fence around the perimeter before young tender plants temp the many animals that share the land with us. (This Memorial Day's forecast low is 33 degrees.)

If the images in this entry have the feel of time-lapse photography it’s because the story of the greenhouse began late last fall and the project was not completed until late April. Such is the way some things go.

We conceived the greenhouse as a dual-use structure, giving us a warm place in which we might extend the growing season but also serving as a space for working on other projects out of the weather. The design was adapted from a shed that is used on the Maine coast for boat storage (called a bow-roof shed).

We opted to build on a 16’ x 12’ footprint. I set the stakes that secure the greenhouse to the ground during the first week of December (before the earth froze solid and put the project off even more!).

Our original plan had been to complete the greenhouse by the end of December but the snows just kept piling up and the winter temperatures rarely warmed beyond the teens. (The photo above was shot a week after Thanksgiving.) Finally, by late-February (below), we had some warm (relative) days and set out to cut and bend the arches.

The frame is made primarily out of 1x3 strapping screwed to four-inch lengths of 2x3 blocking. We used the sill of the greenhouse as a level plane on which to bend the bows – ten of them in all. The bending can be a bit frustrating due to the amount of breakage involved. With each bow there was a long anxious moment as I bent the wood around the form and secured it in place. In all, we experienced a breakage rate of about 25 percent. (Five of the 16-foot lengths of 1x3 snapped while being forced into the curved shape.) We gave up on some days when it felt like the wood was snapping due to the cold, but more likely it was just the pattern of grain and knots in the strapping that led to the failure.

By the end of February we had the ten bows bent and erected the first of the gothic arches. The plywood gussets at the peak hold the bows securely to the 2x4 ridge beam. Once the ten ribs of the frame were in place the project was put on hold again, this time for maple sugarin’ season.

The sap flow finally gave way to budding trees and we boiled our last batch of syrup on April 14th. Time to frame in the ends of the greenhouse, creating openings for the door and vent windows near the peak.

As is the tradition with timber framers over the centuries, we “topped off” the frame with the bough of a tree (called a “whetting bush”). The custom is to use an evergreen species and place it at the highest point in the frame.

Sourcing the greenhouse film to “skin” our greenhouse proved to be a bit of a challenge. For whatever reason, suppliers seemed eager to charge outrageous prices for shipping something that is really not much more than a large sheet of polyethylene plastic. Granted, it has UV protection and anti-condensate layers built in but the 720 square feet of the film that we needed doesn’t weigh more than 20 lbs. We eventually found a source within 50 miles (New London, NH) and drove to pick it up. When I had the film in hand the $100 - $180 shipping fee that other online sources had quoted seemed even more ridiculous! Now all we needed was a wind-free day on which we could pull the film over the frame and secure it in place.

Soon after completion the greenhouse/shed became an indispensable “how did we ever live without it” addition to our Tunbridge land. One final step remains – the addition of automatic vent openers that respond to temperature and open or close the vents at a prescribed level of warmth.

My grandfather never knew a mortgage payment. He lived in the same house from the time he was nine years old until he died at age 92. His was a simple life. He worked for a modest income, but his needs were few. His garden was the source of much of his food and the measure for many around town. He rarely traveled beyond the village borders.

My grandfather was a wise man, but I didn’t understand that in my youth. What I did understand was that our society had evolved to the point where the wisdom of our elders played an ever-diminishing role. Today’s corporate culture values youthful energy and the obsessive drive to continuously learn and produce anew. Old skills have little worth and yesterday’s technology lies in the scrapheap. In my late teens, I left my home state of Vermont with the belief that opportunity lay elsewhere. I set out to make a mark in the world, but a decade later I returned and, over time, began to look at the small town culture and its inhabitants through a new lens.

Today, I find myself spending more and more time thinking about my grandfather. His legacy was one of self-reliance, family, and personal integrity. His was a value that cannot be assigned with a price tag in the marketplace. My grandfather did not have money to pass on after his death. My inheritance is the memory of a man who indelibly touched my life in ways that I am just now beginning to understand.

There was once a time when I considered my rural background and generalist skills of lesser value than those of the corporate climbers. I wanted to become an expert, too. In what, I didn’t know.

Long ago I put any grandiose “career” aspirations behind me. I now long to be more like my grandfather. Perhaps it is because I’ve come to understand the fallacies that lured our culture through the twentieth century. Basic skills that had previously been passed from generation to generation have been lost in much of the population. The relationship between the experienced elder or master craftsman and the youthful apprentice has given way to the teen teaching mom and dad how to set up email on the home computer. I often ask, what will my children inherit from me?

A couple of years ago I was talking with my older son about the importance of being able to create something with my own hands, fix something that breaks, or grow my own food. I was saddened by his response when he exclaimed, “Dad, those aren’t things we need to know. Those are things we pay people to do for us.”

As devastating as his remark seemed at the time, I know that I can’t impose my understanding of the world on him. His reality is much different than mine. Someday, perhaps, David will look back at the host of influential people in his life. He may be as surprised as I was when he discovers how and from where the lasting impressions were formed.

While tending the fire in my little front-yard sugarin’ evaporator recently, I learned that the man I’d written of in late February, the farmer with the sugarhouse next to my childhood home, had passed away on March 10th. My sister wrote to me and said, “Seems appropriate that he went during sugaring season…”

In my reply, I told Melanie that I’d boil a batch of syrup for Howard and that I’d been thinking about the lasting impressions that have come from people I never would have expected.

Melanie wrote back, “It’s most easy for me to believe that people do live on forever … in the lives of the people they impacted when they were alive and then in an everlasting cascade of the people they each impact.”

Hmm. How is it that I failed to notice that my youngest sister had become so wise?

Historically, the building of homes had been an endeavor that relied primarily on local input - individuals, families, and communities. Here in rural New England, the “barn raising” was a common event. Once the timbers had been shaped and assembled on site into their sectional assemblies (called bents), an invitation went out for assistance in raising the barn (or home). Many people, some traveling long distances, came together for the event, bringing food and musical instruments in addition to their brawn. After the barn’s frame went up with the aid of many dozens of helping hands, the day was capped with a barn dance to celebrate the milestone.

Participation in a barn raising was not taken lightly. Each person who came to assist knew that they, too, might need help someday.

Today the creation of a new home (or barn) looks much different. For the most part, homes are no longer built by their owners, but rather by teams of assemblers who piece together the prefabricated components on a foundation. Rafter trusses, pre-hung windows and doors, plastic siding and trim are delivered to the site by truck. Cranes offload the pieces and crews fit them together, often with the help of specialized tools.

One of the things that I like most about the growing interest in small houses is the fact that many enthusiasts are drawn by the prospect of building their own home using readily available materials and basic tools. There is something about a tiny house that seems inherently achievable even by those with little building experience. A growing number of folks have decided, “I can do that!”

For those first-time homebuilders, the role of community is still as vital as it was in days of old. The face of that community has changed, however. Today, in addition to our families, friends, and neighbors, we have expansive online communities through which we can draw on the collective experience in a way that was unimaginable to previous generations. By virtue of the internet, we have great possibilities for community participation in a new form of barn raising. Online forums, discussion groups, and blogs offer millions of do-it-yourself home builders the chance to share what they’ve learned (and proudly display their creations) while also drawing on the expertise of those who’ve preceded them. It may lack the live music of a barn dance at the end of the day, but it’s a community nonetheless.

So what does all this have to do with making maple syrup on a sunny March day? Well, here’s the story behind the photos.

We finally had a good run of sap from our sugar maples and were ready to boil it down to syrup. I was preparing to assemble a makeshift evaporator setup after shoveling out a patch in the two-feet of snow that still stands on the front lawn. We’d invited an old friend to join us. Chuck braved the early season mud and walked the half mile to our land carrying bags of food and libations. We settled in for an afternoon of feeding the fire under the large kettle of sap.

Then, at 3 p.m., a young couple, accompanied by their 3-year-old son and a local builder made their own trek up our snowy path. They’d decided to build their own portable home. Their search for ideas led them to the Gypsy Rose blog. To their delight, they found that we were located in the same state and asked if they could come for a visit and ask questions about our experience – both building and living in a small home.

“Sure!” we said.

They arrived just as Chuck was taking food off the grill – plenty to go around. In that Sunday afternoon sunshine we enjoyed the company of an old friend and answered the questions of a new acquaintance while boiling down the bountiful, sweet sap that flowed from the trees that surround the meadow.