A Treehouse, a little you-and-me house

If you check the post for December, you’ll see the weekend Colleen and Jay visited Fern Forest was the coldest of the winter. On their second visit in March, they had no snow to contend with, and the mud stayed out from under their wheels as they drove down from Brooklyn. We would have been thrilled to see them even if Colleen had not unearthed a bottle of Basil Hayden’s bourbon from her bag as she walked through the door that Friday night. H and I had eaten, but we broke out leftover Boboli and cheese and crackers, and we all dipped into the bourbon. It was a promising start to the weekend. On Saturday Colleen came from the treehouse early because Jay had intended to get a head start on a day at the mountain. She thought he’d be right along, and we gave her coffee while we waited for him. We sat and talked about the Garden & Gun magazine she brought. After twenty minutes, still no Jay. I looked out the back, saw him at the door inside the tree...

Heather and David visited Fern Forest Treehouse for two nights from Worcester, MA, where David is on spring break from medical school. Heather has been on hiatus from her work on organic farms but moves into The Kitchen Garden farmhouse in Sunderland this spring to start planting. I found one of Heather's postings on an organic gardening site that said, "I love garbage!" She's an expert on compost and those adorable and fragile little worms that help break down kitchen waste. It’s always interesting to make a meal for people who don’t eat anything that has a face, which includes no dairy. So we fed them lots of fruit and soygurt and offered warm vegan muffins and scones from Stone Soup in Burlington. The second morning they feasted on gluten-free and dairy-free pancakes with sweet Vermont maple syrup. There were no complaints. They had parked their car at the edge of the woods, and when they tried to back out on Saturday, the wheels on the driver’s side were stuck in ...

H floats down the ice, juggling the black biscuit, weaving in and out of defensemen. He shoulders his way around the last hulk for a showdown with the goalie. The goalie’s face is hidden by a white mask that makes him seem eerie and ominous, and his giant pads give him a leviathan look. H knows how to get the puck past him—draw him to the right and surprise him. When the goalie lowers his glove to the ice, H can lift the puck—go upstairs, they say—and shoot it over his shoulder. He did it many times when he played high school and college hockey. Deeking the goaling, fooling him. It’s a sweet feeling to score, to raise the stick in victory, to be the hero. He’s been there. And he’s over it. In his peripheral vision he sees one of his teammates on his left. He’s gotten through the defense, too, and slaps his stick on the ice. H looks through the white mask into the goalie’s eyes. He’s hunkered down, waiting for H to strike. H sets his mouth and pulls back his stick, kee...

When Cindy said she'd like to replace the Harvard poster in the treehouse with a Yale poster, I'm sure she was kidding. When it comes to the treehouse, we don’t have anything against Yalies, even though, by association with H, I’m all Harvard. Anyway, Fern Forest is neutral territory. Cindy is an art conservator at the Yale University Art Gallery, tediously repairing ancient and priceless works from paintings to mosaics. Rich is a photographer for the gallery. Both are artists in their own rights, but they brought a technical aesthetic to Fern Forest. They drove straight up from New Haven, taking our advice to go over the Appalachian Gap to get to Lincoln, dropped their bags, and rode another hour to Burlington for shopping and dinner. Rich had never been to Burlington and thought it was something he ought to do, but he seemed happy to get back to the bucolic isolation of Fern Forest. It was fairly late when H and I heard them giggling in the spa, the jets massaging their...