I’ve been here in Vermont for a 1 month and a half now and starting to day dream of Venice Beach sunsets and t-shirt/short days in January. Lucky, I am kept busy enough here at designing a playhouse and garden shed, building cabinets and saw horses, running errands around town, and the ever daunting morning coffee grinding ritual. This will be my first “real” winter ever and so far it is no disappointment. I’m still getting used to the constant adding and removal of clothing in and out of the building and can’t seem to get into wearing gloves (I get sweaty palms).

The experience here so far has been phenomenal. I came here not knowing the difference between a rafter and a stud, to having conversation with professional architects and builders. I now know how to fix and maintain a vintage handplane, cut timbers with a chisel, draft out a basic home floor plan, and plaster up wall of almost any shape you can imagine. I find myself everyday walking into the Yestermorrow library and think “geez, where do I start?” The resources here are amazing and I wish I had time to read all the books, even the vector calculus and structural equation ones. I learn something new everyday and meet great people. Hooray for school! Now if I could only figure out a way to ride my surfboard in the snow….