Walking in a winter wonderland

Yesterday morning it was snowing in Vermont. Ella, her best friend Shelby, Honey and I went out for a walk. I thought I'd take you along too, to see the neighbourhood.

This first photo is of our neighbours' barn. They're renting this house from a potter (I've been to his studio and ...shhh...don't like his work), but she's a photographer and he's a carpenter.

We crossed the road and walked up along the river.
The river is quite fascinating when it starts to freeze- watching ice and snow floating on the currents.
The green house there belongs to our other neighbours. He's a children's book author, not sure what she does, but she is so gorgeous. They are the most lovely people and I feel like we've known them for years. Funnily enough, they used to live in the same part of Queens as we did. And I love the colour of their house. I really want to paint ours that colour.


This is so typical of a Vermont house. "Continuous architecture", they call it. Just keep building on. I think I actually took this photo to show their wood stacks, but it's too dark to see. I love seeing the wood stacked in the yard, another closer to the house and then another smaller one right outside the front door. Oh I'd love a wood stove.

The library on Old School street. We've yet to make it there.

This place here is for sale if you want to come and be my neighbour...here's the link
It's next door to the fire station

We're waiting with eager anticipation for this place to open again. It closed down last year (it was our friends' favourite place to go for breakfast before skiing), and has recently been bought by new owners. We're hoping it will open soon. And hoping it will be good. It was a bakery/restaurant. A few times we've seen all the lights on and people "doing" things in there.
And then just up the hill from "the Pantry" is an old decrepit house that I've been dying to go and take some photos of. Vermont is full of places like this. Some just starting to go, just neglected a little, some holding together with just the will of their intent, and some sliding into ruin, ravaged and engulfed by the ferocity of the seasons.
What an amazing place it must have once been.
And now it can barely hold itself upright...bowing out in the middle.



I wonder if it's past the point of no return or whether their is still hope that someone might rescue it. It's not for sale. It's just been left, abandoned.

Just next door is one house that was left too long. Definitely in it's final days of decline. I've never understood how people can let this happen to houses. But this one is right on the corner and I guess it becomes just not worth it anymore.



And here we are back at our house (although this was just as we were setting out). I was taking a photo of the front of our house (which is the most disgusting colour - why am I surprised?) and wondering what the girls were looking at. Ella kept edging closer to the road.
Then WHOOSH! The snow plough went past.

I think she wanted to get showered in snow- she fell into the pile left behind and rolled around.

I think she had a good weekend with Shelby up. They went and explored the river and I took them out to some cool local shops. I decided not to do any work on the house this weekend, and it was lovely just being there. On Sunday though, we had a blocked kitchen sink which required HOURS of work trying to snake out the pipe. We had intended to leave early as the snow turned to slushy rain and we were worried it would refreeze, but after hours of working on the sink it was later than we intended. And then Lilly the cat decided that she'd had enough of being chased around by two girls and argued over by Kit and Ella and just disappeared. Literally. 15 minutes before she'd been in the girls room and then when we wanted to leave she was gone. We then spent another few hours looking for her, opening every cupboard, looking under every piece of furniture, but we just couldn't find her and in the end we had to leave. I honestly don't know where she got to, or if she got out (although she hates snow). Ella and I were both heart broken having to leave her, but we had to get home. We left food and water out and our lovely neighbours are going to go over today and keep an eye out for her and feed her. We weren't planning on going up next weekend, as we were going to take Ella into the city for her birthday, but it looks like we'll have to. So Sunday wasn't quite the lovely relaxing day that Saturday had been.

EDIT MONDAY MORNING:: Got a call this morning to say Lilly is in the house and has had a cuddle with our neighbour.