NHVSP 2011 Update 12

Jayson Benoit from NorthWoods shares his work with the center's forest management practices 

I shall try to be brief as time is short (though of course it actually stretches endlessly in all directions).

The birthday boy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZANE! We awoke this morning to a special performance by Tobias and Jake, in honor of the birthday boy. Getting out of our sleeping bags we headed straight for the pond, which is now halfway ice free – we had a 6 o’clock appointment with the cold water. Brave souls we jumped in one by one, before taking a victory lap around the pond (on dry land). The spectacle was very much enjoyed by the new 17 year old, and the rest of the audience that each had their turn. Then it was back to work; a trailer to be packed and a big home to be cleaned up, leaving as little trace as possible.

Mathilde receiving advice from Grandfather

Having Grandfather Ray Reitze (http://www.oldturtle.org/) and Nancy Reitze in our community for these days has been a real blessing for us. He shared with us his look upon the world and life, and they had lots of entertaining stories to fill the evening with. Grandfather also made the workshop such a good space as we made our paddles, with no pressure but our own to push us to the finished products. The paddles are shaped by and for our own hands, in cooperation (and sometimes quarrel) with the wood, and we can’t wait to dip them in the water for the first time, not to mention finally getting our canoe on the water.

Among our last days’ finish up work we took time on Thursday for a visit from Polly Mahoney and two of her apprentices and three of her dogs. She held a public slideshow at the Stewardship Center, and captivated us all with the amazing pictures of the 10 years she spent working and living in Alaska’s wilderness. These meetings with people who love what they do give us so much more than I can describe in words. Thank you Polly, and everyone we meet that inspires and sows seeds in us.

Hides get stretched and .....

....used as a minitrampolin

I can’t not tell you about the weather, so I will briefly say that we have had alternating days with snow and wind and sun and above freezing temperatures. Everyone enjoys telling us that “in a few days it will be in the 70s and you’ll be wearing shorts”, but we have learned that these comments actually mean we’ll get a snowstorm within two days (this has happened very consistently). All three of our teachers have promised us better weather tomorrow (Sunday), but I think it’s best that we just wait and see. If spring won’t come to us, at least we’ll now start travelling to it.

We carried the canoes down to the river this afternoon. Our time here has come to a close. We packed our baskets, took our village down yesterday, and our paddles stand ready in the workshop. One more night and then we will be on our way – the Clyde River is waiting, Island Pond, which we hope will melt tonight so we can cross it, the Nulhegan River and then the big Connecticut that will lead us south.

The night sky invites so many poems

All alone with it.  It opens me up.

The dark is good all around me

Unknown, but I am connected above

I don't need any light as I walk these paths

My memory tells me where I have to step carefully.

They are familiar, but even richer in this lack of light.

Rich in emotions

Soon there will be no familiar paths

Soon I will wear a headlamp every night

To see where I step

That is the difference:

Somewhere new every night

No well trodden trails

It is a loss and joy

To leave this home behind

Take our home down, this tent that I have walked into

Each night without much thought of it

Rhythms I have made, unknowingly letting myself settle

As easy as that

We are taking down this village, everything we

Have built - these that are my landmarks of

This place - so permanent in my memory that they

Could be here forever, could have been here

Always, even though we ourselves set them up.

Journey on.  We will go on.

And the stars will be above me wherever I go.

Wish us all luck!

Serene is praying for SUN

 

Bridie intensely working on bucking up wood for NHVSP 2012

Mathilde Vikene, Spring Scribe, NH-Vermont Semester ‘11

NHVSP 2011 Update 11

A warming fire at Andy and Tom's 

Kroka’s NH-Vermont Semester ’11 is touring the Northeast Kingdom! You gotta go see them! They’re great! Magnificent! What a band!

Jack Lazor of Butterworks

Thursday morning we loaded up the van after a real Ecuadorian breakfast. Sleeping bags and pads on the roof, and people and food inside – all tight and cozy. Maybe not what a world famous band would go for, but great for us. We were leaving our primed but unpainted canoe behind, holding just memories now of our good times with Scott and Elisa, who left us last Wednesday.  We were ready for new adventures, ready for “vacation”. And so we went- down the driveway, west and south, moving a lot faster than we usually do.

The solar barn at Butterworks 

Our first visit was to Jack Lazor at Butterworks Farm in Westmore, VT (http://www.butterworksfarm.com/ ). If its name doesn’t tell you, Butterworks is an organic dairy farm that makes heavenly good yogurt. In addition to the dairy, Jack grows all the cows’ food.  He also grows a lot of other grains and beans, which he processes in his own granary. Jack showed us all around the farm and told us his inspiring story. We were amazed by his solar barn, a 60x120’ see-through tunnel for the cows, where they live on several feet of straw bedding, which builds up throughout the winter. The barn was so light and good-smelling that we wanted to be cows there ourselves.  We also wouldn’t have minded staying just to cuddle the small cute calves a bit longer. Afterwards, we were taken to the granary for some practical work.  We had good fun with a bean sorting machine before we climbed the stairs up to the highest tower.  It gave us an amazing view all around.  We could see to Canada, much to Serene’s delight. We left Butterworks even more cramped up in our van, having bought some good food for our river trip directly from it’s birthplace – sun flower seed oil, spelt flour, cranberry beans and whole oats (and maple yogurt for a snack in the parking lot).

Next we visited Sterling College in Craftsbury, VT (www.sterlingcollege.edu ). We were welcomed by Stephanie George, Assistant Director of Admissions, and Deborah Benson, a Sterling student who has done Kroka’s Ecuador Semester in 2008. We were happily surprised by a visit from Rosa’s good friend Susanna, also a Kroka semester alumna.  Stephanie and Deborah showed us around Sterling’s farm, where we saw enough cute baby animals to melt anyone’s heart.  We jumped into practical work with building compost piles and learning about draft horses, Deborah’s specialty. Afterwards, we ate a great dinner in their dining hall (some of the students had already heard rumors of our eating abilities, so we couldn’t let them down), followed by our presentation for the students and faculty (with an improvised dance from Zane).

Deborah Benson, NHESP '09 alumna and Sterling student, sharing
her and work with horses

It was just getting dark as we arrived at our last stop for the night. We were sleeping over at Andy Paonessa’s place.  Andy is a former Vermont Semester teacher who lives in a little village of wall tents and root cellars on his friend Tom Rowell‘s farm. It was really fun to see how he has made the life we are currently living (in our wall tents) quite permanent.  He has built a great home with everything he needs. When we arrived in the evening we went ahead with making stakes and putting up tarps by a couple of apple trees on top of the hill – one of the few places that hadn’t been recently flooded. It was our first night sleeping all together under the tarps (instead of in the tent), an especially momentous occasion because one was newly made by Tobias, our wonderful sewing manager. We crawled into our sleeping bags, a long row of invisibly colorful cocoons in the dark, snuggling together in the windy, clear and cold night.

Tom Stearns at High Mowing Seeds

The next morning dawned just as clear. As Julian and Tim huddled around the cooking fire, the rest of us had a long morning meditation.  We went up into the field above and looked at the beauty of the world and climbed some trees.  Then we played a fun game of “everyone’s it”, a tag game that had us all running around and dodging. Tobias developed a technique of throwing himself at peoples’ legs, which did him well, and was thus copied by others – but the morning frost made sure we weren’t rolling around in the mud, for all was solid. After testing out our new whole oats for breakfast, we piled into the van again.  We drove to High Mowing Organic Seeds (http://www.highmowingseeds.com/), a seed company in Wolcott, VT. None of us really had any thoughts about seeds beforehand, but we learned that they could be more interesting than we would ever have imagined. Both Tom Stearns’ story of how he started the company as a small money making hobby when he was 19 years old (and now he now has over 2 million customers and is fighting Monsanto in court and yeah…) and what we were taught and shown about seeds and his business, was really fascinating. By the time we were back in the van again we were mostly nose-deep in the “2011 High Mowing Seeds” Catalog, and I’m warning you parents that you might get seed-crazy kids back home in June, wanting to sow 20 different types of tomatoes in your garden.

From there we went to Pete’s Greens (http://www.petesgreens.com/), “Vermont’s Four Season Vegetable Farm” in Craftsbury, VT. It is a big organic farm that grows vegetables and some animals on their own, and also serves as a distribution center for other farms’ produce. They have a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that serves 350 households.  They also sell their produce to restaurants and stores. In addition, they make value-added foods like tomato sauce, applesauce and other products from produce with “blemishes” that can’t be sold directly. We were welcomed and given a tour before we got our hands on some practical work (we like that). We transplanted lots of tiny plants, before we did a big green house shuffle, moving different greens into new green houses. This was a different world than we have been in lately, warm and oh so green. Jake and Zane were made to suffer in one of the warmer green houses, having to stay in the unbearable heat and put all the plants we shuffled into the right spots. Afterwards several of the boys had a great time playing cows, grazing of the tasty “weeds” growing along the inside of another greenhouse. Julian though didn’t follow the cow-standard, doing push-ups while eating greens every time he came close to the ground. As we were finishing up we got our reward of getting to pick all these weeds that would just be given to the chickens anyway. We stuffed our big bucket, and have been munching as many greens as we could all the way ‘til lunch yesterday, four days later (I’ve been somewhat worried that we could get sick from being let out onto the green grass too quickly, like horses). We were also given 50 lbs of dried apples. Thank you Pete’s Greens!

As we left the green houses, the temperature had luckily risen in the outside world too (sunny and at least above freezing), and we were all hit by a spring fever. We stopped in Hardwick for an ice cream treat, and Nimrod, our expert dessert master (and finance manager) went inside, the rest of us found a bridge to jump up and down on while Tim got a 5 foot stick to play the Pooh game with. Nate and Rosa found a few new twigs that can’t be found on Northwoods’ grounds, and after enjoying our ice cream we were ready to head back to Tom and Andy.

Sam rasping his paddle

We had some extra time before dinner that day, and though is was colder up in the hills where Tom’s farm is, the sun was still shining, and we spread out across the fields and woods – Tim, Jake & Tobias went exploring up the stream in the woods; Serene, Jon & Rosa went exploring beyond the field, finding a horse to spend time with and running around barefoot in a spring mood; Julian & Bridie each found their own places to relax enjoying the amazing view and sun, while Zane relaxed reading through his whole book; Nimrod & I went burl hunting (and were later joined by Jake & Tim back from expedition), which ended as a good hunt for all the boys while I still can’t seem to have luck with my burls; Sam explored the woods too and also found himself a burl, finally hit by the fever now a month after the rest of us. Then we gathered up for a feast together with Tom and Andy: Hamburgers with local meat from Tom, amazing cheese to put on top from a friend of Andy’s, salad from Pete’s Greens with goat cheese from Hardwick’s co-op, and finishing up with apple- and berry pie with maple yoghurt from Butterworks around the bonfire in the dark clear night. I don’t know why we are so food crazy when we eat so many amazing meals, but thank you everyone who stands behind the glorious food we eat (people, animals, and big nature herself).

Mathilde quality checking her paddle

The next morning we set the course north and headed home – though the time looms closer that this won’t be our home anymore. Five more days is all we have got before we set out on the river, and though we look forward to it, we have also entertained thoughts of just hibernating and waiting for the real spring to come (suggested by Serene), or doing a building project up here while we wait around for the ice to melt (suggested by Sam).
 I wanted to write to you about how the beaked hazelnut finally started blooming last Sunday, and Rosa came up and showed me a perfectly magenta Mohawk sticking out a bud. But then the next morning after we stuck our heads out of the tent we saw the world covered in a new inch of snow. It did melt again the same day, and we seem to have a little rhythm going of about 22 F in the morning and evening, and then getting above freezing and starting to melt away our paths of snow in the middle of the day. It is getting less snow all around, but we are also getting more impatient. My conclusion, this spring is a melancholic, unable to decide upon anything, so slow and deep thinking that it can’t get half of what it should do done.

Grandfather Ray Reitze and his wife Nancy Reitze have arrived, and we practice our listening skills as we try to imprint in ourselves as much of his wisdom as possible. Our paddles are on their way, and we practice working with the wood. And I’ll practice my patience, though I really just want to experience the pleasures of spring and warmth with these amazing people.

Until next time, the best wishes for you all,

Mathilde Vikene

Spring Scribe, NH-Vermont Semester ‘11

Julian at work with the hides

Poet’s Yurt

“We feel like the loggers of the old North, waiting for the ice to break up so we can ride the melting winter back down to our southern home.”

- Sam

The Good Life

Essay by Jon Cox

Everything is beautiful

                        interesting

                        wonderful

                        welcoming

                        exciting

     What is my picture of the good life? I am tempted to say it’s five acres way out in the hills, a log cabin, a sugar bush, a garden, some apple trees, a stand of oaks, some pigs or goats, maybe a milk cow and of course a beautiful girl. Maybe some beautiful friends nearby. But I know that’s not really the heart of what I’m after. I know I could have all that and be a ball of suffering, wrapped up in fear and doubt or anger and frustration. Always wondering what I might loose, what I should have or could have, wanting that one last thing to complete the perfect picture.

      What I am really after is peace. Deep peace. I want contentment, to be in this moment for want of nothing. I want to breathe deeply and easily like a wise man, to conquer fear and to swallow my insecurities. Nirvana, you know? The impossible I guess, but I’m not too picky. I’ll settle for gradual progress. When I look back at where I was six months, a year, two years ago, I get a lot of peace knowing I’m where I am now.

      I know, or should I say I believe, that peace comes from within. That with introspection, mental discipline and practice we can choose how we react to life events. That we can step back and choose happiness in face of despair. But I’ve also seen how much my physical life impacts my state of mind and how it makes sense to shape it to my benefit.

      So it is not that I feel my personal salvation lies in growing my own food or building my own house. It is that the more I take charge of my own sustenance, the easier it becomes to foster feelings of satisfaction and contentment. While it may be entirely possible to live a happy, satisfied life in the 21st century suburban landscape, I have found such a life to be very elusive. Modern systems provide the kind of comfort that invite laziness, shun appreciation & diminish relationships. Laziness in turn invites guilt, self-doubt and lack of worth. When you heat with wood the cold kills the laziness and brings the satisfaction that comes with a full wood stack. How can anyone truly appreciate running water when they’ve never carried full buckets uphill from a stream or dry socks when they’ve never walked all day through wet snow? I used to underestimate the power of appreciation. I knew I took many different things for granted, but I didn’t understand the richness and depth my life was lacking as a result. It’s easy in the modern world to become cynical and see only the dark side of everything and that’s just what I did. I saw only how things were bringing me down and never how they were holding me up. As a result I became closed up and guarded and lost much of my excitement for life. As I’ve come to appreciate more things like the clothes on my skin and the trees standing around me, the world has begun to open up again as a rich and wonderful place where most everything is a gift that in some way enriches my life.

     There are those that have found freedom and peace in a prison cell, but since I have the choice I would rather do my work under an open sky, where the people and things around me reinforce the positive and diminish the negative. The other night, while looking up at the sky, I thought of all the people that never see the stars and wondered how that affects the course of their lives. So many times I have been rescued from a downward spiral, by just a glimpse upward on a clear night, or the sight of fresh snow covering the bows of a spruce forest, that I know whatever shape my good life takes, it will happen in the midst of the untamed forest and under an open sky.

Zane hard at work

Sorting beans at Butterworks

NHVSP 2011 Update 10

Hey there. Do you hear that pitter-patter? The rain drops colliding with the roof? I can hear them even here, in this hard-house where I sit typing on a computer. In our village a few hundred meters from here, we are even closer to the weather. As it drums on the cotton sheets above our heads, we speak louder, trying to have our voices heard above nature, but then there is a brief white flash penetrating all walls of our thin building and a moment later the thunder, and we can not do anything but be quiet, listen, and let something else speak.

It is a time for great rain, great thunder, great postholes, and a great canoe. Spring is arriving.  We do not need to live on our faith in it anymore; we can see it with our own eyes. With the building of our canoe, we finally fell into a daily rhythm again. We have morning and afternoon chores, and divide ourselves into canoe groups and big job groups, switching after lunch. The building process of the canoe has gone by faster and easier than we expected, maybe because we are so many hands to help. Scott is a great woodworker and is guiding us steadily along together with Elisa Schine, his assistant, who is working for Kroka this spring. They are both wonderful, funny, and capable people.   We are enjoying having them in our community so much.

The first day when we arrived at the workshop for canoe building, we were met by the sight of the mold: a canoe shape upside down, not hollow like a canoe would be, mostly solid, made out of wood with broad flat metal strips running down it every quarter foot or so. We began the work of bending narrow ribs of white cedar, hot out of the steam box, around the mold and nailing them to the inwale. After we had a full ribbed canoe, a skeleton of what was to come, we could begin the planking. Long, thin, but broad planks, also of white cedar (a naturally rot-resistant wood), would be bent, sawed and planed to fit in their place horizontally along the canoe (almost like a big wooden puzzle), and then nailed to the ribs underneath with small brass tacks. The tacks go through both pieces of wood and hit the metal of the mold underneath, which make the ends of them bend back into the wood and lock.
We then got to take the canoe of the mold, turn it right side up and take in the sight of our creation, all beautiful lines and fresh white wood with the smell of the forest. Then there were several bits and pieces that needed work, stern and bow and outwales and decks and thwart and handles and also clinching all the tacks of the planking – hammer them in a bit further while holding a clinching iron to the inside of them to make sure nothing was poking out on either side. Then there was a whole lot of sanding to do before we were ready for varnish – and now today, the canvas. All along Jake and Nimrod have been caning (a type of weaving) the seats enthusiastically, and Tim and Nimrod had the honor of carving their art onto the decks. Now we just need some filler and color on that canvas before the beauty is done – and she sure is a beauty, all the girls and guys of this semester are going to fight (very nicely) over her – we just can’t help this attraction.

We have also found time for some special evenings this week. Northwoods Stewardship Center screened the film Mother Nature’s Child (http://www.mothernaturesmovie.com/ ) last Friday with the director Camilla Rockwell there to present and speak about it. It tells about the effect of nature on humans, especially children and adolescents, and Kroka and the NH-Vermont Semester 2009 feature heavily in it. We all found it quite amazing to see ourselves from the outside this way, for it was so familiar it could just as well have been us, and I think we all saw even clearer how right it feels that we are doing this. Saturday night we had a bonfire dinner: first walnut bread on a stick, and then roasted deer ribs from the road kill Chris brought us with rice and vegetables. Sam had dug us a fire pit, so we had the fire on the ground and sat on the three feet snow banks around it, having our evening meeting there just as it was getting dark, before moving into the tent for an evening reading of “Northern Borders”.

Sunday was a day that needs its own paragraph. We had heard rumors of warm weather coming, and though we had eaten some nice picnic lunches (in Julian’s soccer pit) the last few days, this was the day it really hit us. We got some good chores done in the morning, and as time for breakfast arrived the sun was shining and we couldn’t eat inside. Sunday is our day for “relaxing” here at Northwoods.  So, taking advantage of the good weather, after breakfast we were going canoeing for the first time. We got ourselves ready, but had to wait for some time – time that was used wisely on sunbathing, sun praising and stripping of layers to let that glorious sun lick our white skin. Then we got down to the Clyde River where Elisa gave us a paddling technique lesson before we got on the water. It was sunny, beautiful and amazingly fun. We felt quite like pioneers as we broke through bridges of rotten ice that were in our way.
Then we had to turn back round, but with fresh longing for that day when we won’t turn, but just continue, up that same strip of water and then down another river. We came back for a memorable egg salad lunch in the soccer pit, before we had a bit of camp clean up, followed by free time until dinner, a strange concept for us. When did we last really have free time? We declared ourselves 30 minutes of free time for burl hunting or napping on the group solo on the third leg, but since then? What to do with it? Some sewing repairs got done and some showers were taken, but quite a bit of big job work got mysteriously done too (though there was also some letter writing and delectable guitar playing happening). Dinner that evening ended with an amazing dessert of Nimrod’s homemade Apple Strudel with ice cream donated from Scott and Elisa (who have learned that the way to our hearts is our sweet teeth). We finished up the evening with movie night, watching “Alone in the Wilderness”, a picturesque movie from 1968, following a man building his own home in the wilderness of Alaska.

Many of us have been building too, in our big job time, and hopefully Zane and Rosa will soon have finished setting up our new fancy toilet, though Zane might be distracted by us badgering him to carve a yolk for our water buckets, and Rosa similarly by the competition she and Nate are having to see who can collect and identify the most different tree buds. Julian has been building scraping stations for his buckskins, and after having soaked them in mysterious mixtures of water, ash and who knows what else, he is now urging us all to sign up for buckskin-scraping in our big job time. Tobias is building our spring homes on the sewing machine - tarps that will protect us from the heaven’s waters as we rest our tired bodies on our next expedition. He has also made the prototype for our packbasket liners, so as soon as we get ourselves together and sew our own, we can carry our stuff safely in the rain.

Jon has set up our little sugaring house (which isn’t actually a house, but an outdoor sugar boiling tank), started his own little sugarbush that is running happily and has turned out almost a gallon of syrup (mostly from local bought sap) for the pleasure of all of us. Tim has been building our journey, lining up maps, planning our campsites and writing the expedition plan, as well as starting an art project of a Vermont map. Sam has been baking sourdough bread, running up and down to the food storages several times daily for different supplies and trying to hold off our insistent badgering for in-between-meal-snacks. Nimrod has been supporting our sweet teeth with heavenly baking of different kinds, experimenting with the first generation of maple snaps, as well sharpening all our planes and drawknives. Jake has also been on the experimenting front, working with rocket stove building and trying to figure out how we can best cook our meals on the river, as well as repairing our lanterns and thereby finally giving us some soft light in the evening-dark tent. At this moment he is building our outdoor fireplace, where we will hopefully soon be cooking in 70F and shorts. Bridie has been out in the woods gathering bark for her experiment, and spends hours in the kitchen making salves to heal scrapes and sore muscles. Serene has been planning our food for the canoe trip, as well as making delicious treats like granola and sauerkraut. And I have been weaving another basket, a long thin cylinder to protect our fishing rods when we’re travelling. And now I’m imagining I’m hanging out with you.

The only thing that can hold us down is this aggressive cold that keeps going around and make people sleep in their work time, but soon we’ll be over that too.  The rain got us in a good mood, but now it has stopped, which might mean the sun will be shining soon, and that won’t make us sad either.

Until next week, all you wonderful family and friends and relations and acquaintances and people out there in this big and small world, live your lives and now that we are happily living ours,

Mathilde Vikene

Spring Scribe, NH-Vermont Semester 11’

NHVSP 2011 Update 9

Hello to all our Dear Parents & the world out there!

I want to start my work here by thanking Nimrod for his outstanding work. His updates have kept some of your urgent questions at bay, and in general we seldom laugh as much as when Nimrod delivers one of his lines – he has made even Nate bend over, short of breath from the giggles.

It has barely been a few days since we saw many of you, so this may be old news, but for those who missed out on all the fun, here is some for you.

Hard at work planning for the spring

We skied up the driveway of Northwoods Stewardship Center on Wednesday the 22nd of March, and did not have time for rest. Even though trail life was over we still had to live, and build ourselves a camp. We began with digging, a lot of digging, before we had room to set all our tents on the ground. Our home now consists of four wall tents and our expedition tent – the big one is our kitchen and meeting room, and there is one for the girls, teachers and guest teachers each, while the guys have our old home. Only after this did we have time to finish up the last part of our Big Jobs – with practical things, like washing and drying hundreds of Ziplocks for Bridie, and academic pages to reflect and give some words of advice for future students. We could then let go off it all with a last presentation for each other and let all stress and frustrations flow away with laughter. I will bring a bit of it out to you here, for your enjoyment or confusion, and so you may learn something might not have known about your child (or friend etc...)

The Eating Awards

The “Classic Frosting Mix-Up/King of the Spice Spill” Award goes to … Jake!

The “Tiny-Bite-Taker” Award goes to … Bridie!

The “Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate” Award goes to … Nimrod!

The “Indecisive Count-Offer/Oh no, I didn’t Get Jam on my 4ths!” Award goes to … Mathilde!

The “Thank God the Big One Eats so Little” Award goes to … Nate!

The “What a Trooper” Award goes to … Sam!

The “I Put Hot Sauce in my Oatmeal” and the “Attack of the Snacks” Awards goes to … Tim!

The “Big Mouth, Little Stomach” Award goes to … Zane!

The “Average Eater” Award goes to … Jon!

The “Eats like a Fat Man, Looks like a Stick” Award goes to … Rosa!

The “Feed the Hungry Boys and Rosa/Come from Behind, Eat Like a Beast” Award goes to … Serene!

The “Weak Stomach, Big Heart” Award goes to … Lu!

The “Boy Wonder/Bottomless Fiery Abyss” Award goes to … Julian!

 And the one who has been watching our eating habits is Tobias, and though he didn’t award himself a prize, we can clearly see that he has been an observant food manager.

So, to Big Jobs. “Finally, spring!” we thought as we arrived here, and though we have now put the winter behind us in mind and work, nature has not yet answered our call. It is still snowing as we take our first steps in our new Big Jobs. I hope that they will eventually fit us as well as our old jobs did – like wearing in a new pair of leather boots. Here are the exciting results:

 

So there, I shall stop being anonymous and present myself. Hei mamma og pappa! Hi everyone’s super nice parents! This is Mathilde speaking, and I shall be your window into our lives for the rest of this journey – I hope it will be to your satisfaction.

Bridie and her beautiful family

Back to the goings-on. Parent Weekend came upon us, as did a very snowy storm, on April 1^st. Too busy reuniting and telling true stories of our exciting adventures to make anybody a fool, we all had a great evening – some going out to eat dinner, and others staying for the potluck at Northwoods (figuring that it was enough to have us push their car up the driveway once that evening). The next day the amazing food fest continued at breakfast and dinner, but in between there everyone had some time for whatever they wanted with their families (which also often involved good food, and I do believe good conversations, and good hugs and for some, good music).  Even Serene and myself, as the orphans, did not feel put out at all – thank you so much for your wise words, contagious smiles, great food and coffee, generosity, and parental love. I appreciate it so much!

The Knapps, the crew, and the baskets

As good byes and well wishes were exchanged that Sunday, our new guests arrived and we had no time to feel down before we were back at work. Chris Knapp had come back to us, this time with his wife, Ashirah, and their children Owen and Bonnie Bee. We were ready to start making our pack baskets, and Ashirah had the knowledge and patience we needed to reach our goal. The week before we had gone down on the other side of Clyde River and cut a big ash tree that we brought home. Then we spent days pounding the growth rings of off it one by one with mallets, under Chris’ instruction, and stripping these into the widths we needed for weaving (with some good help from our families over the weekend!) The weaving began right after the parents left, and though the next few days were spent mostly indoors, we all enjoyed it a lot more than we do our academics. We also had great entertainment in the toddlers running around, Owen well taught to snatch our tools and give them back to Ashirah when we weren’t treating them the way we had been told. Soon enough we understood that basket weaving is a challenging art, and not everyone ended up with the shape they thought they were making, but we all ended up with real beauty between our hands, made by our hands. Tuesday afternoon it was time for the Knapps to leave, and we waved sadly goodbye – Chris, and now Ashirah (and those maple syrup-honey-vanilla icecream-fig bar-chocolate sweet kids), have been an important part of our semester and we are incredibly thankful for everything they have shared with us.

Mathilde and Scott

Now only one day has gone by, but we are deep into building our canoe with Scott Barkdoll of Skywoods Canoes.  (You can see his work at www.skywoodscanoes.com) It is exciting to see the boat take shape, and we can’t wait to see the finished river-runner. Meanwhile, we all struggle with putting our pack baskets down and dream of creating sleeping bags with room to sleep with our baskets on.

Poet’s Yurt of Thank-Yous

To our Loving Parents

Thank you for your gracious, welcoming smiles, hugs, and heaping dishes of food. Your loving support held us close through those days. You were there in times of need and sorrow, to lend a comforting hug and wise words. You were there in times of joyous connection, to share a laugh with.

Many thanks!

- Serene

The Morse Bluegrass Band

Food and company,

your music and memories,

stay with me always.

- Tim

Blue woolen garments.

Corned beef and rye.

A feeling of oh-so-good.

Got places to go and things to do and I know I’ll be happy as soon as I get there

But I wouldn’t mind just one more day.

- Jake

Thank you for lending us your children

for sending these bright young spirits off for a little while

for letting go

and trusting

and bearing with them and us.

I don’t know

what it is like to

have a child and watch

him grow

and let her go

off into the world and become

an adult.

But I imagine this is

not an easy step.

As one by one they grow new facial hair, make big life decisions, question the path they are on

And now here you are, with your support, your trust, your courage

your love expressed through heaping tables of food

I can’t know what it is like for you, but I do know it is no little thing.

So thanks.

– Lu

Dear Wonderful Parents:

We thank you for all your wonderfulness, on parents day and in general. Your generosity, for your children and everyone else was greatly appreciated. Most of all, thanks for the kindness you showed those of us who don’t happen to be your children – the times you spent talking and even taking out people outside your family. It is a remarkable sign to Semester’s power.

- Nimrod

Right now, for the short term,

you are nourishing me with food.

But for the rest of my life to come

you give the gift of knowledge and love.

Sometimes that can best be given

with a different environment and people,

and I can not think of a more noble act

than to let go and encourage

our growth away from you.

- Julian

Thank you for the food and drinks,

for your loving care.

Thank you for your guidance, 

the strength you give us,

for your support and wisdom.

And your patience as you wait for each new update.

- Rosa

With that, hold onto your patience (as we try very hard to hold onto ours, and fail, in waiting to see the ground and leaves, and putting away our winter boots). I will happily bring you more tales of our life in not-so-long.

Yours dearly,

Mathilde Vikene

Spring Scribe NH-Vermont Semester 2011