Summer and Crayola Colors

I was just responding to an email questionnaire that asked me what my favorite Crayola color was, so I did a search for Crayola colors and thought it would be fun to write a blog post based on them. See if you can find all the Crayola references...guess in the comments field and I'll send the winner a fun prize. This post is really referring to last weekend. This weekend's post will happen sometime this week.


Tom is finally here in Vermont and summer has arrived. The sun starts to rise around 4:30 am these days and there is still light in the sky at 10:00 pm after the raw sienna sunset has faded. The above photo is of beautiful field in Cabot, right near work. The weather in the heart of the Green Mountains has been tempestuous and moody--heat and humidity followed by powerful thunderstorms and hail. The sky is amazing and I haven't seen clouds so puffy white in a long while. The hills and valleys are so green it makes you squint, with chartreuse grasses and jungle green trees. The woods are full of goldenrod and dandelions and these teeny weeny cornflower blue baby flowers with the smallest dot of yellow at their center. There are so many dandelions around it almost seems to be snowing sometimes due to all the white seed in the air. A silver summer snow.


Everything is so alive and colorful right now. The Scotch Highland cows I drive past in the morning just had little calves covered in fluffy tan fur (an adult is pictured above). Everywhere I turn I notice a new wildflower: plum and salmon lupines are popping up all along the dirt roads alongside mulberry peonies and delicate periwinkle flowers. I was so happy to see the lupine because a variety of lupine grows in the Bay Area and I just love it and would miss it if something similar wasn't here. There is even a Lupine Festival in Franconia, NH to celebrate this spikey, soft, brilliant magenta and lavender flowers. Tom and I haven't had a real summer in years, so we are sitting pretty.

We are making a list of all the summer things we want to do here. On our list is a variety of things: find some local swimming holes, try fishing, go to outdoor concerts, rent a canoe and spend a lazy afternoon on the river, go to a Bread and Puppet performance...the list is becoming endless and summer is short here....but the nice thing is this is only our first summer here and we have many more ahead of us!

This weekend we walked up into Hubbard Park a couple of times which is a really great park just above Montpelier. It reminds us a little of San Francisco because you have to climb steep hills to get there. Once you arrive you are engulfed in green. It is a woodsy place full of ferns, trees, and hiking trails with lots of lovely spots to picnic and grill in. On the way up the hill we found a box of free books. Tom and I are suckers for free books. Here is Tom enjoying the first page of Conan the Barbarian:


We decided to go all the way up to the tower. What a good decision! There are beautiful views of The Green Mountains and all the quiet little mountain meadows all around, and in the winter when there aren't tons of fluffy leaves on the trees I imagine there will be a nice view of Montpelier. We both plan on getting snowshoes this year and are talking about getting up to hike here before work when it is cold and snowy. Ha! We'll see if that happens...



Here is Tom at the foot of the tower. There is a rickety old staircase that is mildly reminiscent of traveling to the top of an old church tower in a small medieval French town. Okay, maybe it's not that glamorous, but to us it is...

We ended this day with a nice evening at home. We are looking forward to moving into our permanent place, fingers crossed, on July 1st (they are redoing the floors and the materials are arriving late...). Our dear old friend Natalie arrives that very day to celebrate the 4th of July with us. We will be living right in the heart of town in a very cool old brick building. Our apartment has beautiful light and a great view of the Winooski River that runs right through town...