"Notes on Life and Living Well"
Clients who hire us have decided to delegate their financial concerns to us so they can focus on what is really important to them in life. We in turn periodically offer observations and ideas that we hope will help them enjoy life a little more.
Wherever there is snow that melts in the spring there will be mud, but Vermont seems unique in its determination to celebrate this “Fifth Season.” If you do a web search for Mud Season, most of the hits will relate to Vermont. This season we have long called our “dirty little secret” has been romanticized.
Almost 30 years ago, Time Magazine ran an article titled “Vermont: Mind over Mud.” And that wasn’t the first time Vermont’s mud has become a subject to amaze flatlanders. When you read some of these accounts, you are tempted to suspect that Vermonters’ propensity for telling tall tales to the gullible with a straight face may have played a roll in the ever-expanding fame of Vermont’s mud season.
Then again, if you ask an ex-pat Vermonter about Mud Season, you will quickly hear them wax poetic about their fond memories! This is especially true of folks who grew up here and moved away before they were charged with removing Vermont’s semi-liquid landscape from carpets and floors and clothing.
A few years ago some Vermont bed & breakfast places tried to make muddy northern New England a destination, offering free car washes, complimentary mudslides (the drink) and spa mud wraps for travelers looking for an off-season getaway. Apparently this effort bogged down because there doesn’t seem to be much of this sort of promotion for this season.
Now the hospitality industry has found it easier to promote the sweetness of maplesugaring instead of mud! Many tourist oriented businesses piggy-back promotions on the annual sugar season. It does address that same period of limbo - the same ingredients that produce deep mud also produce copious sap runs.
If you plan to visit a sugarhouse, sugar makers can advise you which roads may be passable and which ones may be, as the old timers say, “too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate.” A word to any of the uninitiated: Pay close attention to hand lettered signs warning of “bump.”
Predicting “peak” Mud Season is difficult. Some years we have little trouble with mud. Other years the unpaved roads eat small cars for lunch. Some say the severity of Mud Season depends on how deep the frost goes into the ground in winter. Others say it depends on the amount of rain in the early spring or the amount of snow left on the ground when the thaw begins. Each theory has something to recommend it – and no matter, remember, eventually spring will arrive.
Food for thought…
Have you ever noticed how some people seem to have a perpetual scowl on their face and others tend to go through life with a Mona Lisa smile? Have you heard two people responding to exactly the same thing and one, as the old saying goes, sees the glass half full and the other half empty?
Some people seem to cultivate anger at the “unfairness” of it all. Others take the approach that life isn’t fair, and we still only get one time around, so we had better enjoy it.
Which sort of person do you prefer to be with? Which sort of person do you prefer to be?
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This is a lovely desert dish often served in Sweden on the summer smörgåsbord, but equally nice to top off any sort of meal, whenever you can get fresh rhubarb. It’s also a lot less calorie-heavy than rhubarb pie. These proportions serve about 4. And if you want a bit of "summer" in the depth of winter, frozen rhubarb works very nicely!
1 1/3 cups water
1 cup sugar
3 cups cut up fresh rhubarb
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 Tablespoon cold water.
Bring water and sugar to a boil, then add rhubarb and baking soda, and simmer gently until rhubarb is tender, about five minutes. Remove rhubarb with slotted spoon to a serving dish. Mix together the cornstarch and water and pour into syrup, stirring constantly. Simmer gently and stir for three or four minutes, or until it’s clear and thickened. Pour over the rhubarb and serve warm or chilled. You can top it with cream, milk or ice cream, but by the time you add a dollop of French vanilla, you’re into as fattening a dish as the rhubarb pie. Oh well, once in a while probably won’t hurt too much.
Mud Season is Vermont’s “dirty little secret”
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