25 Below!

How cold does it get in Vermont mid winter? I woke up yesterday, freezing cold, but a bit puckish. The first thing I did was nuke a cup of water to a rapid boil, walk purposely, but carefully down the steps and out the barn door . I dumped the scalding hot water off the barn bridge and over poor Russell the farmer’s head. The latter wasn’t planned. He walked straight out from under the bridge into the path of the boiling water. But, poof!, the entire cup of water vaporized into a trail of steam before it even reached him no more than eight feet below. That’s how cold it was!

Me: Hey Russell, I just poured some boiling water over you!

Russell: What? Are you crazy? Hey Liz, listen to what Matt did….

All the animals sustained the -25 (I’ve never felt colder weather in my 41 years) just fine. And we Vermonters did alright too, because with the severe cold comes a proportionate increase in lugging wood around. And as any good Yankee knows, that’s the best way to warm up there is. On the snowshoe touring front, I unveiled my secret weapon today. The fondue pot! I filled it with chocolate fondue and kept it warm by the fire. I sliced up some bananas, oranges and pineapple, skewered, dipped, and melted (I melted, that is). As they say in Mexico: Que rico!


On my latest tour, I whipped up a pot of mulled cider. It was incredibly easy to concoct, and it hit the spot on such a frigid day.

Premier Snowshoe Tour

It was my first snowshoe tour, so naturally I was bustling around making sure I fine tuned every last thing. Was the fire lit? Pastries arranged? Were the snowshoes all in one piece and the right size? Meanwhile the two ladies from Boston, Katie and Erin, were grabbing a bite at The Original General Store and tending to their own last minute concerns, adding heat packs to their boots and putting on the right combination of winter gear.

Liz, the Amee Farm farmer, met us with her jeep, and we parked at a beautifully refurbished horse ranch, Riverside Farm, and adjusted buckles and straps until we could settle into our hike and start having fun. The conditions were idylic: snow up to our knees and fluffier than our Angora rabbits. The snow was falling gently. It was light and feathery, just enough to tickle your nose.

We entered the hills behind Riverside to mark the start of our wooded adventure. Erin and Katie were naturals on the snowshoes. Everytime I worried that they might stumble or slip, I looked back to see that they had done nothing of the sort. It was their first time on snowshoes, but I got the sense that they could handle everything I threw at them and we’d still be having a good time.


We made it to the Amee Organic Farm just in time, before darkness set in. We snowshoed aside the animal pastures while Bella, the Great Pyrenese sheep guarding dog, hammed it up for us, frolicking in the snow, camouflaged in her thick white coat. We went out to see the pigs in their castle (I’m not kidding! I’ve nicknamed it Hogwart Manor.) and the chickens and the turkey and our two living puffballs, the angora rabbits. I showed them our barn, that’s built around a giant tree (you have to see it to believe it!) and we relaxed by the fire with some hot chocolate, bon bons, and pastries.

Katie and Erin were the perfect guests, great conversationalists with terrific sense of humors, and we had a blast. I almost forgot that I was a tour guide.