Mud Season by Ellen Stimson

New England is a beautiful but often harsh place to live. Husband and I met and married there, but when grad school and a job offer whisked us off to gentler climes, we never looked back.

My sister and her husband are made of sturdier stuff. They live in the New Hampshire woods by a creek. As native New Englanders, they flourish through all the seasons; the crisp autumn days, the long snow-bound winters, the clouds of black flies in the spring, the hot sticky summers, and even the muddy inbetween season. During the long winters, they often loose power (which means no pump, so no running water), so they bring in buckets of water from the creek for flushing and to heat on their wood stove for washing. They don extra layers of clothing, bring in firewood, light candles and wear headlamps –calmly making do until power is restored — in other words — They Forge On.

Forging on is just what Ms. Stimson does in Mud Season — (aptly subtitled How One Woman’s Dream of Moving to Vermont, Raising Children, Chickens and Sheep, and Running the Old Country Store Pretty Much Led to One Calamity After Another).

This memoir, which the author admits is only 78% true, tells the story of a St. Louis family who move to Vermont, after falling in love with it on a vacation. Ah yes, you may be thinking, another one of those How-to-move-to-the-country-and-have-an-idyllic-life stories.

Well, not really — actually, not at all.

Ms. Stimson is snarky, sarcastic, and very, very funny. With her family in tow, she doesn’t so much as move into the small town of Dorset, she invades it … and colossal failures ensue.

They spend an outrageous amount of money renovating their old farmhouse using out of state contractors. They go on to purchase chickens and goats – knowing nothing about their care. Their son is acting out in the local school and after a run in with the administration, they take on home schooling which doesn’t go well. (A science lesson results in a red-dyed pond and a subsequent police investigation.)

Ms. Stimson decides to open what she calls a “quaint country store” and caters to the tourist’s Disney version of Vermont – even charging $4 each for peaches from New York (gasp!). When the tourists leave, so do their store sales.

You’ll simultaneously laugh and cringe at Ms. Stimson’s cavalier attitude and misguided good intentions. This is no gentle, “let’s take things slowly and get to know the locals” approach — this is forging on with misguided plans of making a living in the Republic of Vermont with profoundly ill-advised decisions.

The book is smattered with wisecracking footnotes which reflect the author’s wry self-depreciation – her afterthoughts on how she could have done things differently, but she just can’t seem to learn. Her irresponsible optimism blinds her judgement and she just keeps forging ahead.

When Ms. Stimson does try to fit in, it results in yet more mishaps. She dresses up with scarf and heels for local festival and later reflects on the standard Vermont uniform…

…khakis and sensible shoes with a blue chambray linen blouse and some version of fleece on top. No lipstick. LLBean. Steady and reliable.

She gamely agrees to open her house for the spring home tour, forgets the date and is found out back mucking out the chicken shed — with a very messy house.

So I did the only real thing that I ever could do. I walked up the hill, took off my poopy gloves, offered my cold, chapped hand, and said “Hello, won’t you please come in?”

A beautiful waterfall only a 10 minute walk from her house brings her quiet joy and she lovingly describes the smell of each season. And so you begin to believe she’s going to make it — one can only hope she’ll start to get it. Then, during the often freezing mud season, the unpredictable, bighearted Ms. Stimson adopts two orphaned lambs and keeping them warm indoors, seems surprised when they destroy their beautiful renovated house. It seems they won’t be house trained.

Mud Season is an outlandish, funny read until the last few chapters, when the family’s dreams and reality collide into bankruptcy, the closing of the (now called) “horrible” quaint country store, and having to take jobs out of state with long commutes.

Mud Season may have been written more for humor than accuracy but if even half of it is true, here’s a cautionary tale. A tale of how not to barge into a small Vermont town, how not to become friends with the locals, how not to to be part-time farmer, home schooler or a quaint country store proprietor. But it’s a journey that will have you laughing the whole way.

Ms. Stimson has written a follow up book called Good Grief – Life in a Tiny Vermont Village – not sure I can take any more of her foolish antics, no matter how funny.

Save