I got back from eight days on the road Friday night. I’m used to getting home on a Sunday or a Monday so having a whole weekend available is sort of great. I came back to a Vermont where people were out and about doing things and being pretty cheery about it. The weather passes for warm, the mud has receded, the tree leaves are visible. There was a festival in town, the Fiddlehead Festival (my pix), which I went to with a few friends. I saw sheepdog demonstrations and ox pulls and had a localvore lunch with a few hundred neighbors. Then last night I went out to a friend’s birthday party which mostly took place in the driveway near her outdoor pizza oven which we put pizza after pizza into. The evening wrapped up with home made strawberry shortcake, pound cake, present opening and coffee.

When I was in New Jersey more than one person asked me why I lived “so far away from everything” as I was explaining the ups and downs about working for a teeny rural library. I explained that I like the lazy pace, the casual dress code, the lack of traffic and honestly the lack of humans. I enjoyed the proximity of everything at the Jersey Shore and I’ve got some longtime history with Amherst and the environs as well as my friends who live there, but I’m okay with frequent visiting. Waking up here every day where it’s quiet and slowly, subtly, greening is the thing I always miss when I’m away.