Sugarbush

Lest you thought that there was a rather unusual bush in Vermont, this is Sugarbush. On our Saturday errands, we decided to go to a small town named Waitsfield where our janitor friend Connie says they have the best farmer's market in the area. What fun. Every little town along the way has its own flea/farmer's market. There were many, many yard sales. The farmer's market was all organic veggies so we paid a price for salad greens, tomatoes and radishes. The kind of radishes my mother used to grow in her garden--hotter than the hubs of you-know-where! Oh they were delicious, though.
When we saw that Sugarbush was nearby we took a drive. It’s a beautiful place. As far as I could see there’s no mountain peak to be snow-capped. I read in Wikipedia that their average snowfall is 262”—believe me this year they’ll have 362 because I’m here! This is a multi=million dollar resort affectionately called The Barn. Connie says she worked there cleaning rooms so she and her boys could ski for free. She says the people who own condos in the Barn are rich and famous and not from Vermont.

This is our neighbor’s back yard. Most backyards in rural Vermont are bordered by forest.

Apparently, summer in Vermont is rain, rain and more rain. Sometimes all day, but mostly just part of the day. We have had some hot and humid days which are torture. Our work is going well and we’re enjoying meeting the people with whom we work. We miss summer and I’m especially going to miss the ward flag raising on Saturday. We’re going to try to find a Fourth of July activity somewhere maybe near Burlington. Have a wonderful Fourth.

Driving in Vermont

Week before last we received a long-overdue visit from our director. Manny is from Montreal and he and my hubby were chatting about the abominable state of the roads in Vermont and Quebec which he says are worse. Almost without guile, Garth said: "Sister Gunter is going to forget how to drive. She hasn't driven since we left Washington." You noticed I said almost without guile because I haven't driven very much for years! I don't like driving and if I can find a chauffeur, my life is good. Besides that, I don't drive when the ultimate backseat driver is with me. And I wouldn't drive in Vermont--the driving and drivers are crazy.
Number one. Making a left hand turn is hazardous to your car and health. Every morning we have to turn left onto a very busy, narrow, pot-holed street. However, the Vermonters are nothing if not courteous. At risk to the long line of traffic, they often slam on their brakes and stop courteously and wait so you can make the turn. Elder Gunter takes the opportunity whenever he can to do the same. I try not to notice the cars behind stopping just short of dominoing everybody else. He has also perfected the two finger salute which signals your thanks to the polite driver. As you make the left turn onto Main Street, you have to swing wide around the gigantic pothole that marks the entrance to Wilson Street which is more like an alley than a street.
Number two. Vermonters don't merge! They ignore any traffic and forge ahead. There's no politeness here and you get another kind of salute if you get in their way. We've had several close calls until we learned the principle of merging in Vermont. Stay as far from the merge lane as you can. This habit of theirs is especially bad when they're going to work or coming home from work. They also don't like anyone to pass them.
Number three. The fauna. We haven't seen much in the road, but we see the warning signs. Moose crossing, bear crossing, deer crossing, duck crossing etc. Apparently squirrels have been a problem for many, many years, but we've maybe seen five squirrels. This has puzzled us because of the millions of trees. Apparently, something has reduced the squirrel population to practically nothing.
Number four. Pedestrians. By Vermont state law, pedestrians who are in a crosswalk have the right of way. You must stop for them. Even when we went to the top of the mountain to see the Von Trapp family lodge, there was the familiar yellow sign right in the middle of the cross walk warning drivers to stop. Knowing they have that privilege, pedestrians force the issue. Again--the domino effect as drivers are trying to get stopped.
And, finally, the local police force. Brother Walton, a member of our ward and the former Police Commissioner of the state of Vermont, explained to us something we've heard about before. Vermont has hundreds of little towns--platted seven to eight miles apart and each has a town cop or two. These guys have an injunction and receive bonuses for giving out speeding tickets especially at the end of the month. Brother Walton says the sheriff's deputies can do the same. No tickets yet.
That's why I don't drive in Vermont. We've been blessed to have the Old Biddy. I've never had a sense of direction and Garth has been really turned around here. This is Vermont

Our "mis"adventure

Our weekend has been an excellent “mis”adventure of sorts. On Monday we received a letter from the president that we were invited to a senior missionary couples’ conference for Friday in Manchester at the mission home. We were overjoyed also to learn that we could attend the temple on Saturday. We changed the plans we’d had and decided to do two things extra. First, we would visit one of the most famous quilt stores in the US located in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. Okay, I admit—it wasn’t Garth’s first choice. And we decided to visit the Freedom Trail where most of the historical sites are located in Boston.
Friday morning early we started out for Manchester. We had programmed our GPS which we affectionately call the Old Biddy for Center Harbor and, as a precaution, I had printed a route from the computer. The constant rain of Vermont was pouring the entire day drenching everything which made driving difficult. Center Harbor is in the White Mountains and we traveled a winding mountain road to get there. Understand that when you travel in this part of New England, especially Vermont, you are traveling on tree lined freeways. The trees are so thick and heavy laden with leaves that you, literally, can see nothing but trees in every direction you look. In this picture, you’re looking through the windshield and the rain.

Center Harbor, the home of Keepsake Quilting, is located on a huge beautiful lake called Lake Winnipesaukee which has several littler finger lakes around it. We were astounded by the large number of motorcyclists we saw in that area and learned later that there was a motorcycle gathering of over 50,000 bikers in the area. By the way, Keepsake Quilting was a quilter’s haven and well worth the effort to get there for it had been an effort. Garth slept in the car while I shopped.
Our conference was wonderfully uplifting and interesting. We especially visited with our friends the Longhursts who work in New Hampshire and the Jacklins who work in Maine all doing the same thing we’re doing. We all had dinner in a lovely home and I snapped this picture of President Jensen and his lovely wife.

On Saturday we headed for Boston. Another “mis”adventure. The address of the temple is 89 Frontage Road which the Biddy didn’t recognize as a valid address. I’d once again copied the address from the internet so we finally made when we finally spotted the Angel Moroni on top. It is a very lovely temple and we enjoyed our session very much.

Now the “mis”adventure began. First of all, we forgot to eat at the temple. The only redeeming thing about this was that it was a beautiful day as you can see in the picture of the temple. In fact, it was 83 and muggy! I didn’t remember the address of the Freedom Trail but figured it was right in downtown Boston so we could get to it easily. One thing about me as a navigator—no sense of direction at all. And, uncharacteristically, Garth has lost his as well.

We did make it to Boston, but there was so much traffic, so many people and absolutely no parking that we only found the Old South Meeting House. We were also very uneasy about the whole thing. We never got out of the care. We put the Biddy on Home and were out of there in ten minutes. President Jensen had suggested that missionaries should stay within their mission boundaries and we will abide by that counsel.

We ate in Lowell, MA which is an historical, quaint town of cobbleston streets and ivy-covered buildings. It is the home of the New England Quilt Museum which was across the street from the Subway where we ate. Always the good sport, Garth accompanied me on the tour. They were featuring the work of an art quilter named Radka Donnell but we didn’t care a lot for her quilts except that they were beautifully displayed. We loved the old traditional quilts which were part of their permanent collection.
All in all, it was a wonderful and relaxing trip especially since our director had visited us on Wednesday and Thursday and given us new and more difficult directions for our work. We are truly blessed to be here.

The Quirks of the Trade

I haven't blogged lately because I haven't found much to blog about. We've kind of fallen into a routine and haven't squirmed out of it. This weekend we stayed home the entire weekend except to attend church and a baptism. We had planned to go to a big quilt show in Essex Junction and do a couple of tourist things this Saturday, but instead we get to go to Boston to attend the temple and, perhaps, do a couple of tourist things there. Yeah! Yeah!

I was going to put a picture of Joseph Smith to set the theme of my blog, but when I put his name in Images some pictures showed up that sickened and saddened me. I was thinking about some of the quirky, little things that have happened in our lives because we're missionaries. The reason I was going to put Joseph Smith is because he taught the principle of self-reliance when he said I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves. On a mission, you really govern yourselves.

We're often perplexed as to what to do because we are missionaries. The records preservation only fills our workaday hours most of the time. Sometimes we have a little work that we do at home, but mostly not. We're supposed to be at the beck and call of the ward bishop, but he hasn't called on us much. The fulltime missionaries have only called on us during the time we're at the Repository or when we're 40 miles away. I find lots of solace in my sewing, but Garth (Ooops, Elder Gunter) doesn't have much to do. It's not like there's grandkids nearby, yard work to do, or handyman stuff. Any poor soul who wanders into the room where we work is engaged in a long conversation whether they like it or not!

People do the funniest things to see what our badges say. Since we represent the Utah Genealogical Society, we wear white badges which say Family Search when we're working and black badges other times. We've had several conversations with people about our work, but most don't know there's records to be preserved in Middlesex or they don't really know what genealogy is. The people at the Repository are much more versed in records preservation, but can't believe that we would volunteer to do it let alone move across the country. We're the little church mice in the corner there.

And we find that being a missionary means mission rules some of which apply to us and some don't. We have our director who is in Quebec whom we've seen once. He's coming tomorrow for a couple of hours. We only hear from him once in awhile. Our mission president is in Manchester, NH, and he's only responsible for us ecclesiastically. For those of you who know, he's the first cousin to several Royalites--the Allreds and Andersons. He basically tells us to read our handbook. If we followed our handbook, we'd call each other Elder and Sister instead of by our first names. Hmmm. Just me remembering to call him Elder when I'm talking about him to my contemporaries is a feat.

Being a missionary means we're living in an apartment which would be a blog in and of itself. Our apartment is quite nice really thanks to our kids and the missionaries oohed and ahhed about it when they came to dinner, but, for us, it's a little confining. We're not used to neighbors who bang on the wall when you're pounding something at six in the afternoon. We're not used to having the landlord write messages like: Spring has arrived in Vermont. The heat is turned off. Run your windows appropriately. What does that mean? And the laundry--now there's a tale!

It's an interesting life and very different for us. Sometimes we're very lonely especially when we don't hear from anybody. We're adjusting to it, though, and finding new challenges each day. The two big topics of conversation here are the weather and the roads. Neither are fantastic. Have a nice day everyone! Pray for us and pray we have summer before September.

Saturday Ramblings

Doesn't everybody love Saturdays? At first, we wanted to go somewhere different and exciting every Saturday, but the last two Saturdays we've stayed closer to home.
First, we explore downtown Barre. There's always something going on. This week was hotrods. I really enjoyed them. The annual Green Mountain Motorheads show was the big attraction. We were there early. You could see classic cars coming from every direction.

Then we go to Montpelier to the Flea Market. This is from last week and it had just poured down rain. This week it was beautiful and sunny. The streets of Montpelier were jumping! This flea market brings out hippies, artists, street vendors, entertainers, etc. This week it was long-haired, long-bearded mountain bands in dirty clothes. Joe, you'd have enjoyed them. I did. Instrument cases open for donations. I'm thinking they're CEOs during the work week and dirty, bare-footed musicians on Saturdays or maybe they're genuine. There’s a lot of ethnic food and crafts. It’s also a farmer’s market and we’ve been astounded at the vegetables already available. We also went to the Waterbury flea market which is huge and by some estimates been going on for 30 or 40 years. Bunch of junk to me.

Last week while standing in the rain under our umbrellas waiting for the downpour to abate, I snapped this picture of one of Montpelier’s churches. There are so many churches within blocks of each other. That's one of the things I love about New England.

From Waterbury I wanted to go to Stowe for an errand, so we stopped at the world-famous Cold Harbor Cider Mill. We were disappointed. At the mill, the guy was using a hand-crank press and piller like your neighbor might use. He informed us that was how they made their cider. We asked where the commercial press was and he said this was it. Baloney! Hand-cranked for cider which is sent all over the world? I'm skeptical.

We attended Zone Conference in Lebanon, New Hamsphire on Tuesday. These are geared for young elders, but it's the only time the senior missionaries in our area can get together. We love lunchtime which lasted two hours. We've made some nice friends. Our president doesn't have much time for the senior missionaries.

For fun, I took a picture of one of the folders which we imaged. There are 185 images in the packet which means front and back sides of the documents. This file was from 1858. The work goes on. Have a good week everyone.

A Memorable Experience

You're going to get really tired of me blogging about Sharon, Vermont. This was an absolutely

terrific patriotic program called Hope of America which was performed on May 31 by Primary children as well as military people. Up near the Memorial are representatives of every branch of the service. The massive red-shirted group you see is Primary kids and their leaders who sang beautifully and with their whole hearts. Closer to the Memorial are rows and rows of small flags. For six days before this event it had rained steadily. When we arrived that Sunday evening, the wind was very, very cold! At our house (an hour away), the wind blew shingles off the roof. It was obvious that only the toughest and those who came prepared (most hadn't) would stay warm and be able to enjoy the service. The chaplain who gave the opening prayer asked that the weather be tempered for the service and the JSM director and the missionaries who work there had said a fervent prayer as well. The wind stopped. It did not even move the flags. Storm clouds threatened several times and passed over. Our family home evening group who are old-timers here said this is a common occurence. The weather abates to allow programs, etc. to occur and then you'd better head for your car because the adverse weather is going to return with gusto and they were right. I'm a sucker for such programs as these and it really touched my heart.

Here's a luggage carrier we saw in the parking lot on the way out. One day we're going to travel to the Northeast Kingdom which is, of course, the northeast corner of Vermont where the moose population is 4 to 1 (4 moose to each human). It's my goal to see a moose before we leave.