We started driving cross the upper USA on May 23rd..  We were heading to Groton, Vermont to do our 27th workaway for a host who has a wedding barn venue .

Along the way we stopped off in Colorado to visit Mike’s cousin Walter and his wife Joan.  We hadn’t seen them in a very long time and really enjoyed our brief visit.

 

One thing we noticed along the way was the long rows of odd fencing near the roads.  We learned that these are designed to stop the snow drifts from coming across the road.  We had not seen this before.

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We continued cross country.  We would have liked to have stopped at places like The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but most places were still closed.  One place that wasn’t was Niagara falls.  Now I have been to Niagara falls before with my mom, but Mike had never seen it.  As you can see from the photos there weren’t many people and the bridge to cross and see the Canadian side of the falls was closed.

BUT this Canadian goose was allowed to cross to the US side. 🙂

It was kind of nice to be able to walk around and visit the little island with no crowds (trying to look at the silver lining).

We really got a kick out of how the birds would float in the water and seem to be going off the end of the falls.  Then you would see them open their wings and fly off.  It appeared to be like a game of chicken to us.  Crazy (not Angry) birds.

 

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Since we were in Buffalo NY, we couldn’t resist the chance to go to the birth place of Buffalo wings. You couldn’t eat in but could order to go.  There was some interesting decor. We got a dozen of the habanero mango wings, went back to the hotel, and enjoyed some of the best wings I’ve ever had.

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VERMONT

On June 1st (9 days after we left CA) we arrived at Martin’s house in Groton, Vermont.  Martin is probably one of the nicest and most welcoming hosts we have ever met.  We immediately felt comfortable in his quaint farm house.  Martin has a big beautiful rustic red barn that he uses to host weddings.  Of course because of the virus there were no weddings planned for this summer, so we had time to spruce things up.

 

So lets start with the jobs we did.

Martin gave us a tour of the barn and asked us to help put up white string lights along the rafters to give a romantic feel to the wedding venue.  It did look nice.

      

The view from the barn is so beautiful (we repaired the windows) and the bar, located down stairs has bar tops made of local wood (amazing look).

The front room of the barn is where the bride can get ready.  All in all he has made a wonderful venue for weddings.

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One of the primary jobs was to mow the lawn.  Now when you think of mowing the lawn you would normally think of a few hours of riding a mower around.  BUT not at Martin’s.  The “lawn” consisted of three fields (there is a fourth but Martin does that with his large Kubota tractor).  It took both of us on riding lawn mowers two 5 hour days.  To be honest everyone really likes mowing the lawn.  It was relaxing and kind of fun to see if you could avoid trimming the tops off the boulders peeking their heads up.  At least I really enjoyed it.

I took on the task of cleaning up the weeds and brush under 2 very large lilac bushes while Mike was removing the brush from along the road.  This wasn’t as easy or as fast as it sounds, but it was very satisfying when I stepped back and saw how nice it looked.

We would haul away the brush and branches using Martin’s Polaris ranger (like a small 4 X 4 off road heavy duty golf cart).  It was fun to drive it around (I drove it faster than Mike) for work and for fun.

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Shortly after we arrived we were joined by a very nice 19 year old workawayer named Zoe.  She hadn’t been to the country side much and it was fun to see her learn new things from Martin.

As an example,  one day I saw a blur go by the living room window while I was finishing my coffee. We looked out the window saw Zoe on the John Deere mowing the lawn at full throttle.  I don’t know how much grass as getting cut, but we all burst out laughing watching Zoe having the time of her life.  Afterwards we had to have Zoe mow with the slower mower and she never quite got the hang of mowing without having to go back and get the many missing strips.  Martin told us about a Japanese workwayer who would ride around aimlessly with no care to a pattern.  He would go tidy up the lawn later but he said she was having so much fun he didn’t want to stop her.

For some of the larger brush and small trees that we removed from the lawn, we used the wood chipper attachment on the Kubota.  This was Mike’s chance to learn how to drive the Kubota.  Watching Martin show Mike how to operate the Kubota was like watching two men stick their chest out and grunting.  Mike loved it.  One of the neighbors came over to help.

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We were joined by another workaway, Karen.  She lives a nomadic lifestyle and is a very hard worker.  One of the jobs that wasn’t as important to Martin as it was to Mike was to remove an old chicken coop that had been on the property for 50 plus years.  It was built on an old trailer so the owner didn’t have to pay taxes on it, since it wasn’t technically a permanent structure.  Smart huh!  We tackled the old coop with hammers and crowbars.  We fought off bees and tried to avoid the mice urine soaked boards.  Mike finally decided to put his newly acquired Kubota driving skills to the test.  He pushed down a good part of the coop using the front loader bucket.  It was a long process but we finally did it.

We loaded all the old boards on Martin’s dump truck and off he went to the dump. I have to say I was deathly sick later that day.  I was the one in the back of the dump truck loading the urine soaked wood and in hindsight I REALLY should have worn a mask.

Martin had asked Mike and I if we would be willing to go across the street and remove a large pile of brush from the neighbor’s yard.  We hauled away 10 or so dump truck loads of brush.  Mr. Gay was so grateful that he cooked us all bacon wrapped scallops for dinner one light.  Martin has great neighbors and lives in a very family friendly town.

Martin is German and told us he wanted a German forest.  From the looks on all our faces he realized that we had no idea what that meant.  We soon found out that he wanted us to remove all the brush and under growth in the forest.  WHAT???  That is what we said but set out to do just that in an area Martin designated as the starting point.  We didn’t get it but it did provide a great bonfire pile.  More on that later.

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So what did we all do on our time off?

One of Martin’s neighbors is Kathy.  She would come every night for dinner and leave in the morning.  Yes they are a couple and a nice one at that.  Kathy was very welcoming to all of us and even invited us to a family birthday and graduation.  She and Martin are great cooks and I must say this is probably the best food we have had at a workaway.  Lest we forget every night Martin would say “It looks like it’s about to Margarita”.  He makes the BEST margaritas.

Some nights we would all play different card games, have a fire outside, or watch movies in the barn.  Movie night was great once Martin got the volume to work and the light coming in from the windows was blocked off. The debate about what movie to watch usually began at dinner and could get quite spirited.

It really was a lot of fun.

Sometimes we would go to the stream and cool off.  We only went twice because, frankly it was freezing. Martin and Kathy didn’t seem to care, apparently due to their Vermont thick skin.

Zoe was fun.  Martin taught her to whittle and build a fire, which led to us having to roast marshmallows with the sticks she prepared, which then lead to smores.  Not a bad deal.  Some sticks started out as small branches and ended up as toothpicks.  Zoe was a blast.

One night we took the Polaris and everyone went to the stream and cooked hotdogs over a fire till it got too dark.  It was a quite and peaceful night with friends.

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We also had time alone.  Mike and I would drive the Polaris on the lumber “trails” in the forest, read books out by the barn, visited the Vermont Teddy Bear factory and King Arthur Baking Company.

Vermont Teddy Bear Factory

We went downtown to see the largest zipper in US. It is made from granite, since there are so many quarries in Vermont

If you know me you know I love Jacques Cousteau, so when I heard tat the site of his first dive was Harvey’s Lake in Barnet Vermont, we just had to go.  We laughed when a local told us that when Jacques was young he went to summer camp on the lake and his “first dive” was off the dock into the water.  Someone had a strange notion to say he used a reed to breathe underwater and called it his FIRST DIVE.  He got us to visit the place.  LMAO

   

We took a hike one day up to a fire tower.  I climbed about 2/3rd of the way up the tower. That was high enough for me.  The view was beautiful.

 

We also took Zoe to Ben and Jerry’s for some ice cream and went to the next town for ice cream a few times with Zoe and Karen.  Ben and Jerry’s has a cemetery for flavors that didn’t quite make it. Some of them deserve to be there but others sound good.

There is a very nice old fishing lodge within a few miles of Martin.  The lodge wasn’t open for overnight guests, but locals did rent out the boats and fish.

We went a few times.  Once to meet the new caretaker and again to have dinner with her

and a few times to walk around the lake.

One day the lake was soooo quiet the water was like a mirror. I couldn’t stop taking pictures, not that I need a reason to take a lot of photos LOL.

   

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Remember when I wrote we had collected and chopped down enough wood for a bonfire?

Well Martin’s idea of a bonfire is a supersized fire to celebrate the 4th of July.  Kathy and her family and some neighbors came over also.  We had some food and all headed to the lower field.  Martin lit the fire with deep fryer oil from a fryer.  It was huge.

 

As the night went on Martin felt the need to do some “poking”.  And in Martins way, he got into his Kubota and proceeded to re-stack the wood.  We think he was testing to see if the tire could handle the heat.

 

 

     

If you look closely you can see the Kubota in the fire.

He even got the bucket to smoke.

It was a beautiful fire.

    

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Before I end this entry I wanted to show a few more pictures of this beautiful slice of Vermont.

We had a wonderful time at Martin’s. He and Kathy were so gracious.  We really enjoyed Zoe and Karen.  We are planning on visiting Martin again since he lives in New England where Mike and I are from.  And most importantly, Mike got Martin’s margarita recipe.

Thank you Martin for opening your home to us during COVID.  We can always look back at the wonderful memories in a time that was a bit crazy otherwise.  We think of you as a good friend. BUT you still owe me a moose sighting!!

Till next time….

“One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are” – Unknown