Wonderful Weston VT [June 21-23, 2018]

Weston was once a mill town, a few mills remain

Those of us who do not live in New England have preconceptions about small New England towns fed by movies and the Bob Newhart TV show.  Pretty town squares surrounded by boxy wood sided or cedar shingled buildings, one or two bright white churches with tall thin steeples, a few mills that once grabbed power from rushing streams, and all surrounded by dark green mountainsides.  Weston VT is all this and more – it has our cousins, Sheila and David Swift, a trout club, a renowned Playhouse, and the Vermont Country Store.  

Wantastiquet Lake

Crawfish...it's what's for dinner!

Sheila and David are part of the Wantastiquet Trout Club that maintains a lovely lake with cottages snuggled along the rocky shoreline.  The lake waters are crystal clear (thanks to careful husbandry by the Club) and home to trout, other fish and an abundance of crawfish.  On our first evening we set out crawfish traps baited with chicken bones and cat food.  The next afternoon we went out in the boat to harvest our catch, enough crawfish for all of us for dinner!

David and Dana on the trail

David took us on a morning hike around the lake along rocky (and sometimes squelchy wet) trails through thick forest.  Our destination was the “boiling springs”, pools of water where artesian water bubbles up from the water table.  The forceful flow of the water up through tiny fissures in the earths surface “boils” the sand – it is truly a unique site.  Above is a movie of it (if we can get it loaded).  Below is a still photo (if we can not get the movie loaded).

Sand boiling as artesian water is forced to the surface in a tiny forest pool.

Maple Yumminess

We visited Bobo’s Mountain Sugar, a Weston maple syrup operation, and learned how maple syrup is made.  The maple trees are tapped, and during certain temperature conditions the sap from the trees flows out of the taps down through long pipes to a collection tank.  From there it is filtered and then dispensed into a huge tank and boiled (in this case with a wood fire) until the sap reduces to the sweet, deliciousness that we pour on our pancakes.  The water that is extracted is collected and used to clean the equipment used in the process.  Nothing is wasted.

Having a bit of a rock on the porch of the Vermont Country Store

Folksy photo shoot inside the Vermont Country Store.

Weston is home to the Vermont Country Store, from where (coincidentally) we ordered some Christmas gifts last December.  It is housed in a large old wooden building (perhaps a former home) with different floor levels where rooms have been added on over the years.  You can graze your way through the different food and candy samples,  and try “shots” of different maple syrup.  We left with gifts, cheese and a copy of the board game that Dana played at her grandmothers house when she was a girl.

We are family...

Probably the best adventure of our brief (but busy) visit was being able to spend time with our dear cousins in their beautiful home, and the dividend overlapping visit with their daughter, Jen.  Oh, and Sheila is an AMAZING cook!

Wildflowers are so beautiful in the summer in New England!