Little Brown Jug

Don’t worry we haven’t gotten a bottle from some moonshiner in the Vermont hills! Our friend in all things Vermont, Connie, gave us this jug of liquid gold—maple syrup. We’d been commenting that maple syrup was terribly high priced--$65 a gallon. She brought this to us saying that her boyfriend who, ironically enough considering my title, just retired as a state inspector for the liquor control board buys syrup from friends to help them in hard times. They had 9 gallons of maple syrup. She’s going to bring us more when we’re ready to leave. (By the way the two hangers you see are gifts from my sister. Aren’t they cute?) Connie, whose wit is classic, explained that she likes Mrs. Butterworth’s better.

I wanted to say one more thing about inventories. When we visited Calvin Coolidge’s homestead we were greeted by a very chatty docent who has a very cushy job. The Coolidge’s housekeeper preserved the house until well into the fifties when it was donated to the state of Vermont. Everything is pretty much intact. Her job for which she will have two or three assistants is to inventory over the next two years every item in the Coolidge estate—every fork, every shoe everything. Guess where her salary will come from—stimulus money! Don’t you love it?
This is Vermont.