Written shortly after moving up north to the Adirondacks during Covid, 2020

Finding my place. That’s what I’ve been dong these past 4 months. Since moving to our home in the Adirondack Mountains because of Covid, I’ve been pinching myself most mornings when I look out our bedroom window at the 100 plus year old white pine. I like to think the farmers who built our small white clapboard house over 100 years ago planted it as a symbol of their good fortune. The Champlain Valley was prime farm and iron ore mining country at the turn of the last century.

Now it’s home to vacationers, second homeowners, and year round residents. Some of the year round residents have been here for generations or like us, they discovered this amazing landscape over the past 30 years, fell in love and stayed.

We’ve owned our little home since 2007 and have longed to move up here full-time. This year of the Covid has made that possible. This terrible pandemic forced most of us, who could, to work remotely. As college professors we were teaching online last spring and figured we’d be teaching remotely through the fall and possibly winter. We thought, why not move to our Adirondack home for the duration. We made arrangements for our months away, packed up a lot of stuff and were off. It was intense.

Now that the dust has settled, I’m figuring out how I want to live up here in the north woods. We’re far away from interstate commutes, crowded streets and cities. I haven’t worn ‘work’ clothes except for my zoom teaching stints. And then, it’s jeans below and silk blouse/jacket above. 

I walk in the woods most days and gaze at the high peaks from a hill behind our house.  Chickadees come up close – one almost hit me in the head the other day as I was walking on the trail behind our house. Then it perched within an arm’s length, unafraid and chirping. Amazing.

Now, we get our ‘groceries’ at our new CSA, Essex Farm. Each Saturday, I take my bags and put on my mask to ‘shop’ at the farm. We have separate time slots because of the Covid which means I don’t have to rush or worry about distancing. There is a large pavilion with tables full of produce and staples like pastry flour, bread flour, corn meal, rolled oats plus two refrigerator trucks/containers of more produce, eggs, chicken, milk, yogurt, cream. It’s a full diet CSA.

I’m picking up and then googling strange veggies like Kohlrabi, celeriac, Daikon radishes, Delicata and Kabocha squash. I’ve taken something called Schmaltz (chicken fat) from the freezer. Who would think six months ago, I’d be simmering lamb bones for hours to make a delicious stock for lamb stew and later chicken stew. Now I have time to cook! And I love it!

Cooking was not my favorite activity for the many years I worked fulltime and raised my twin daughters. It was a job, not a pleasure.  Now when I wake up at my 4:00 AM worry time, I think about what I’ll cook. Hmm. How about a pork shoulder roast with farm sauerkraut, apples and mashed tiny white and red potatoes. How about a combination of chopped leeks, red onion, garlic, shallots, and broccoli in white wine over pasta? How about mashed Delicata squash or roasted and halved squash filled with ground lamb and spices Indian style. The roasted chickens are to die for and with buttered and parsley new potatoes, steamed kale or carrots or brussel sprouts or cauliflower, ahhh. You get the idea. The possibilities are endless.

Because I have all this food in our frig and freezer, I don’t have to run to the store for missing ingredients. I use what I have and make actual grocery store runs to TJ’s in Vermont every two months. When I’m stuck, I use Google, and I use my imagination. It’s so much fun. I look forward to 4:00 or 4:30 each afternoon when I put on my butterfly apron and begin to chop and cook. For now my place is in the kitchen, practicing my culinary skills and listening to our white pine rustle in the evening wind.