Having the background of an environmentalist, a city planner and a transportation planner who thoroughly supports the theory of New Urbanism, I knew I wanted to live in the city when we moved back to Vermont from Los Angeles. That meant moving to Burlington. The lovely
little house we renovated was located in the Old North End of Burlington was it was perfect. It was in a mostly residential area right next to downtown. I spent many days when Big Bro was an infant just walking around the neighborhood, to the waterfront, and to downtown with him in the Baby Bjorn and our dog Pepper happily trotting along with us. We walked anywhere we wanted to go, laughed at traffic during rush hour, and at the traffic trying to leave after events like the July 4th fireworks. We ate out constantly, we met so many young, friendly people. It was a diverse neighborhood with people from all over the world who had settled in Burlington through the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. It was all cute, historic, human-scale streets. We had more than one park within easy walking distance. We even had our own little grassy backyard that we mowed with a mechanical pushmower, barbequed, threw parties and played games. Our own slice of paradise.
Meanwhile, my husband's parents still lived in his childhood home in the Champlain Islands and the house next door to them had come up for sale. At first I resisted. Our little city house was perfect, and we had spent so much sweat equity making it so, and the LOCATION, how could we leave the location! But then again, this house in the Islands had almost 4 acres of land and an attached apartment.
One hot July day it all started to change. Our neighborhood that I loved so much was considered sketchy by many of our friends. To be fair, the Old North End does have a lot of poverty, plus issues with crime and drugs, but there are plenty of "good" people there that it was ok. That summer the apartment house across the street from us started having a lot of undesirable activity: people shouting obscenities in the streets and Police responses to the premises on more than one occassion, and a biker gang who liked to park out front and rev their engines. "What if we do just go look at that house?" I asked my husband. "Really??" was his response. "Yeah, but could my mom live in the apartment if she wanted to?" That was my stipulation and he agreed.
We went to see the house on another hot July day. The house was musty from being closed up for a long time. It was still full of lots of the seller's stuff, and nothing had been updated since the 1970s when it was built. There was orange shag carpet, turquoise shag carpet, and an old red carpet that was more like a blanket on the floor because all the glue had long ago dissolved. Nevertheless, it was large and had lake views. There was a fireplace, a big kitchen, and then what really drove it home was the big screened-in porch on the back. "Uh oh." I told my husband. "I really like it."
We made an offer, it was accepted. We put our cute, little city house on the market. We closed on the country house on October 1st. We closed on the sale of our city house on October 31st. While in negotiations to sell our city house there was a murder just a few houses down the street. It helped me feel like leaving our perfect little city house was the right move after all.
Now we have egg laying chickens, a garden, and goats. We tap our own trees to make maple syrup. Maybe
my next career will be farming. Our dog loves roaming the almost 5 acres of "the compound" as my mother-in-law affectionately calls our living arrangement. She (Grandma) and Grandpa live next door and adore playing with their grandchildren. My mom, known as Nini to the grandkids, lives in the attached apartment and we love sharing meals with her. My kids have an amazing (and rare) experience to grow up knowing all of their living grandparents extremely well. Life is good.
Below: Pictures from the backyard of our city house
Below: At our country house with the chicks and our first garden in the background.
Below: Putting taps in the maple trees
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