Cross into the Green Mountain State from Massachusetts on Interstate 91, and you might feel as if you’ve entered a new country. There isn’t a town in sight. What you see are forested hills punctuated by rolling pastures. When you reach Brattleboro, no fast-food joints or strip malls line the exits to signal your arrival at southeastern Vermont’s gateway city. En route to downtown, you pass by Victorian-era homes on tree-lined streets. From Brattleboro, you can cross over the spine of the Green Mountains toward Bennington and Manchester.
Central Vermont’s economy once centered on marble quarrying and mills. But today, as in much of the rest of the state, tourism drives the economic engine. The center of the dynamo is Killington, the East’s largest downhill resort. However, central Vermont has more to discover than high-speed chairlifts and slope-side condos. The old mills of Quechee and Middlebury are now home to restaurants and shops, giving wonderful views of the waterfalls that once powered the mill turbines. Woodstock has upscale shops and America’s newest national historic park. Away from these settlements, the protected (except for occasional logging) lands of the Green Mountain National Forest are laced with hiking trails.
Vermont’s northernmost region reveals the state’s greatest contrasts. To the west, Burlington and its suburbs have grown so rapidly that rural wags now say that Burlington’s greatest advantage is that it’s “close to Vermont.” The north country also harbors Vermont’s tiny capital, Montpelier, and its highest mountain, Mt. Mansfield, site of the famous Stowe ski resort. To the northeast of Montpelier is a sparsely populated and heavily wooded territory that former Senator George Aiken dubbed the “Northeast Kingdom.”
Burr Morse
Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks
Montpelier, VT www.morsefarm.com
February 11, 2011
Hello again Maple People,
There’s something about our Vermont winter that brings total awe from traveling folks; “How do you survive in the winter? Can you get out at all? Do they even try to plow the snow or is there simply too much?…those are the questions they ask in the same tone as if puzzling craters on the moon. I, seven generation Vermonter, am always tempted to “milk” it…”hell no…we just put on some extra fat and hibernate.”. But, being a Vermonter, I always tell the truth; “Vermonters are pros at winter” I say.
If there is one thing I look forward to in my email each month it has to be the latest “News from Vermont” from Burr Morse. Each email brings a dose of Vermont all the way down south where I call home and makes me wonder sometimes why I never gave in to that wanderlust that called me to that northern state back in my younger days. I would link to this months issue but the only way to read each issue is to subscribe to the email newsletter.
If you are ever in the area, stop and visit Burr. Tell him we sent ya…
I really like these videos…And Basin Harbor looks like a really neat place to have in your childhood memories…And not a bad place for grown up memories either.
I stumbled across Stuck In Vermont a couple of weeks ago and loved it. The show is a regular on YouTube. Their channel can be found at Stuck In Vermont.
The 32nd Annual Great Bristol Outhouse Race drew a large crowd early Saturday morning before the town’s 4th of July parade.
Why race faux outhouses on the 4th of July? No one really knows but it’s a Bristol tradition and there are cool trophies.
I don’t know how long it’s been since I first stumbled upon Burr Morse of Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks in Montpelier. It seems like I have been reading his email newsletters for just about forever even if I know it hasn’t been all that long. Today, just as I was setting up this website, I received his latest.
Now I have never met Burr…But every few weeks I get his email, and it’s like he is another member of the family. Burr talks about all the things he loves about his life up their on the old home place. He keeps me abreast of the latest comings and goings, the weather, even the state of the syrup.
This month Burr let us in on an ongoing communication he’s been having with his mother.
July 9, 2010
Hello again Maple People,
Yesterday my friend Larry Perry emailed me saying he’d seen my mother, Dorothy Morse’s name on a list of folks who have money being held by the State of Vermont. I told him I’d check into it and when I did, I found there was enough to give each of us four siblings over $400.00! ”That’s just like our mom” I thought…”she’s always leaving nice little surprises for us.” Dot Morse, you see, passed away back in 2006 but it’s not like she’s gone from our lives. We “see” her everyday in the flowers that grow around our place, remarks folks make about her and, especially the rainbows…yes, our mother communicates her most important messages by “rainbow”. - via News from Vermont # 215 — Ring me up by Rainbow.
I thought it only fair, since Burr adopted me into his family way back when, that I return the favor and make him the subject of my very first Vermont post…And Burr’s weather report for last week…
It sure has been hot here in Vermont the last few days…quite the opposite temperature from when we make our maple syrup in March!
