Fern Forest Winter


We were quite surprised when Colleen and Jay signed up to stay two nights in the treehouse just after Christmas. We'd had some snow, and the early winter nights were getting cold. But the treehouse looked sweet outlined by colored lights.


They drove up from Brooklyn in Jay's 1996 Volkswagen Golf without snowtires, stopping for a bite to eat along Route 22A. It was after dark when they arrived in Lincoln, getting within fifty yards of our snowy driveway before they skidded off the road into a snowbank. A neighbor came to help, and AAA managed to pull them out by looping a band around the old car's rear tire.


There was no way the Golf was going to make it up our steep driveway, so H followed them to the local library, where they left their car in the parking lot, and he hauled them and their cross-country skis back to the house in his pickup truck. That night Jay picked some tunes on H's guitar and we drank a couple beers and got to know each other. Colleen is a freelance producer who worked on Survivor Fiji and met Jay when she worked for VH1, where Jay produces videos. He showed us pictures on his Mac of him with Les Paul, Trey Anastasio, and a dozen other luminaries in the music world.

We warmed up the treehouse the best we could with its little heater, and Colleen had brought an extra down comforter. I had put a thick one on the bed as well as an electrically heated mattress pad, but they'd need the extra warmth for the coldest night of the year. Temps dipped to minus five that night with a fierce wind that made the trees creak and pulled the wind chill down to minus fifteen. I was glad to see them in the morning, rosy cheeked and gleeful and not at all frozen or grumpy, and we gave them hot mushroom frittata for breakfast and kept the hot coffee coming.

That afternoon H drove them to Bristol for supplies, which included beer, wine and munchies, and then we got more snow and the news advised not to go out on the slick roads. It was too cold even to ski, so I made some black bean soup and pulled the venison steaks from the freezer, and Colleen and I made a feast, served by candlelight and seasoned with two bottles of good wine. Fed and fueled, they headed out to the treehouse for a second night.


In the morning the roads were clear, and I went to the gym for a two-hour workout. When I got back at 11:00 a.m., our guests were just rising. I made waffles with warm maple fruit compote, and they hung out with us until early afternoon. We were sorry to see these intrepid souls leave. I could sense their reluctance to head back to concrete and crowds, but I know they'll be back. What interesting, creative and versatile souls to spend some holiday time in the fierce and purifying cold with us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sex and the Treehouse

Image
When Hana asked to book Fern Forest Treehouse for herself and three friends, H said there wasn’t room, the treehouse is only ninety square feet, he didn’t know how they’d sleep. “Oh, we’ll bring sleeping bags,” she wrote. “Don’t worry—we’ll fit in.” H is a pushover, especially for such youthful enthusiasm. And he thought it sounded like a good time. When the four gals pulled in from Boston around eleven Friday night, H was waiting up for them, the path to the treehouse lit by solar lamps, the treehouse itself all aglitter with colored lights. From upstairs, I heard excited giggles as he showed them around, more giggles as they climbed into the spa under a sky studded with a million stars. As happens in water at 102 degrees, the giggles calmed to whispers, and eventually all was quiet. The sun rose clear Saturday morning, warming the treehouse so that the girls were up a little after 7:00 a.m. We were still in bed when I heard water running in the downstairs bathroom, and H and
Read more

A Treehouse guest discovers his roots in an old millstone

Image
In spring 1794, a group of men set their shoulders to clearing land in what is now Lincoln, Vermont. The footpath they blazed into the forest eventually became a road named for the Quakers who came to settle with ox carts holding all their belongings. They were young, strong, and healthy. Once they pried rocks from the fields, they found the soil rich enough to support their crops. A year later, nearly one hundred residents, mostly from New York and Connecticut, scattered over 24,000 acres of wilderness, most living in tiny one-room cabins made from logs they hewed by hand from trees they had cut on their property. They cooked meals in stick-and-mud fireplaces, spun wool from their sheep, wove fabrics to make their own clothing, and cobbled shoes for their families. They hunted game in the forests and guarded their livestock from wolves that prowled the land. When the crops failed and game was sparse, they went hungry. Quaker services were held in homes until they built a m
Read more

Octopus Fishing in Portugal

Image
Ann was studying in Spain for a semester, living with a Spanish family. When the university had a break, Portugal called. It’s an old country, remains of the first settlements dating back to the Neolithic period, five thousand years before Christ. The Visigoths invaded in the sixth century. In 1986, the hills were covered in wildflowers, and horses grazed in fields crimsoned with red geraniums. On the southern coast of Portugal, the area of Algarve is dotted with small fishing villages. Santa Luzia, Tavira, Lisboa, Faro, Cape Sagres, Salema. From the gold dust beaches, one can look across the sea to the shores of Morocco. Bathers swim topless—young women, old women, bathing tops cast aside, breasts bared to the sun. Ann felt strange covering herself. She was just nineteen and modest, but she wanted to fit in, to be accepted, even among these strangers on the beach. She’d worn a one-piece tank suit but slipped the straps off her shoulders, rolled down the suit’s upper half, lay
Read more