Sterling Days 7 & 8

My first weekend here turned out to be a good one. Friday night after class the whole dorm went to a lean-to in the woods at the back of the farm. We had a nice warm fire going and hung out for quite a while. As I was leaving I heard a very close, very loud pack of coyotes howling at god knows what.

On saturday morning I went to a farmer's market on Craftsbury Common and bought a couple pieces of organic handmade soap. One is infused with balsam and the other with tea tree. They smell pretty good. Saturday night I went to Zach's house to watch the Bruins game. Zach is about my age and served in the Israeli Army a while back. The house is an immaculate log cabin owned by his parents. They had it built to their specs as a retirement home. The interior is completely covered in tongue and groove pine and looks beautiful. The best feature though is the great room that has a high skylighted ceiling and huge windows that go from ceiling to floor revealing a stunning mountain view. Pretty awesome.

On sunday I spent most of the day at John Smo's campsite. Rather than live in the dorm Smo decided to set up a tent and live outside for the semester. He was sleeping in a hammock in the swamp but recently moved to a tent platform across the field from the dorm. We spent the afternoon gaining and losing various people as they came and went, coloring with crayons, throwing hatchets, imitating bird calls, discussing and learning knots and hitches, carving walking sticks, and listening to a great independent radio program based in VT. The dial setting is 107.9 and every sunday from 1 to 4pm a fellow plays some really good, rare and diverse music. Yesterdays show included folk, bluegrass, celtic, mariachi, reggae and old swampy blues music. I'm already looking forward to next week's show.

Smo's Campsite




Smo's homemade blacksmith forge (he drove down the road with a fire going)