A Treehouse, a little you-and-me house

             On February 14, Fern Forest received a Valentine gift of two feet of fluffy white snow. Steve and Carmen braved the late winter nor’easter to spend a romantic weekend in our secluded treehouse. But first they had to get to us. The young couple moved to Vermont from Austin, Texas, two years ago, so what did they know about driving in snow? Living in Burlington, they leave their car parked most of the time. Steve commutes by bus to Montpelier, where he works at the Vermont Agency of Transportation, and Carmen walks to the University of Vermont to teach math education.               H usually plows the driveway with his aging pickup but because of the ferocity of the storm, he hired a local guy who knows the nuances of plowing. Well and good. But it’s impossible to scrape down to gravel even with the best plow.          ...

Before Christy and Tim came to Fern Forest, I wasn’t sure where Iowa was located on the map. I got Iowa confused with Indiana. Whose idea was it to line up three states that begin with I? There’s a highly respected writers’ conference in Iowa City—I do know that much. I’ve heard people talk about running into Kurt Vonnegut at the local grocery store when he wasn’t educating his MFA students about the difference between resonance and resolution. I know writers who earned their MFAs from Iowa and have gone on to publish some impressive works. But other than that, the Midwest for me has been a bit of a blur.             Tim’s Iowa blood goes back many generations. He grew up in Cascade, a small town near Dubuque. The last of the "spit-ballers," Hall-of-Famer Red Faber is from Cascade. Tim's dad works as a  mail carrier there, and I imagine he knows everyone in town. Christy started out in Cedar Rapids and then moved...