Fine Art Friday–Vermont

You know that feeling when you are in a place that you really, really love?  It literally adds a giddy zip to your step?  I felt like that last weekend in Vershire, VT, where I spent 4 formative months of my junior year of high school at The Mountain School of Milton Academy.  You can read more about it, but I swear it’s not the kind of place that you get sent to if you are bad.  It’s just a good old-fashioned working organic farm with intense academics, amazing people, fresh food, and chickens.  Lots of chickens.  Included in the program are chores (some fun, some not), environmental science hikes (on snowshoe), maple sugaring (warm days and cold nights are best for sap), and a four day solo (yes, as in all by yourself in the woods).  I just loved it.

As part of our reunion activities last Saturday, we planted several rows of potatoes in an absolute downpour.  In fact, it rained buckets the entire 36 hours that I was there.  As we planted, water ran off my baseball hat in torrents and soaked through my pants (jeans were a bad call) while rich, muddy soil embedded itself under my fingernails.  But I was smiling the whole time.  And testing the waterproof limits of my camera….more of those images to come.  The afternoon concluded with a rainy hike to a remote hilltop shelter for a thoughtful reading and discussion of Robert Frost’s Directive.  Sitting there with the rain falling and people chatting in depth about fabulous words like “belilaced,” as well as discussing the idea of journeys and change over time, brought back that wonderful feeling of “wow, where AM I?”  So, today’s image hails from Vermont, one of my favorite places in the world.

What is your favorite place that makes you feel equally smitten?  Why?
Don’t be shy…just reply!  Happy Friday.