Ron is totally into the firsts. So when we started planning our annual trip to the MEN Fair in September, he was delighted to find out that Vermont was going to have their first event this year. We do love trips to Vermont so we were in. Luckily we have the days to take off from work and no conflict with THF plans.

The only issue we ran into was the start time on Saturday morning.  Being old fogies, there was no way we could get up early enough in Sherrill to make the trip to Burlington are arrive by 9:30 am and be in any shape for the upcoming day.  About a 5 hour drive, factoring in stops we would have to be up and out the door before 4 am.   That is our normal wake up time.  So we decided to splurge and take Friday off as travel day and spend the night in local hotel.

This gave me the chance to insist on a stop at Vermont Country Store and Ron decided to throw in visits to a couple of places that make tiny houses.  Even though we do have an actual “tiny house” out on the farm, it is not the one Ron had planned on.  He wants a real house, one that HE can stay in.  After some research on the internet he found a company that looked interesting.  A few emails later and he had an invitation to visit.  They also recommended another place just down the road from then.

Friday we left the house at 6 am, which was late for one of our traveling days.  Rainy morning but not too much traffic on the NYS Thruway.  Stopped for our usual quick  road trip breakfast at McDonalds and hit our first bump in the road.  We lost about 45 minutes waiting there.  Annoying but this was not our usual trip and we had no hard schedule to follow.

I do like driving with a GPS and it brought us right to the address for Tiny House Crafters in Londonderry, VT.  It is a good thing that Kate advised Ron that they have a small space and not to be put off by their lack of big work buildings.  We could tell it was the right place by the two tiny houses in the front yard.   Anderson and Bob were busy working on their current project but they were happy to stop and spend some time talking with us.  Kate joined us and Ron jumped right in with his list of questions.  They were a terrific group of people and I could see that they were delighted that Ron was asking “real” questions and already had some knowledge.   Anderson went back to work and Kate and Bob gave us a tour of the house they are working on for a traveling musician.  It was amazing.  Annoyed at myself as we were 10 minutes down the road before I realized I had not taken an photos.   But you can see the quality of the work they do by checking out their website.

Then we headed to Jamaica Cottage Shop in South Londonderry about 10 minutes away.  This place was huge.  They specialize in building sheds of all shapes and sizes, but have now stated morphing them into tiny houses.  Shannon was very helpful and sent us on a tour of the two houses they had on site and the number and variety of buildings they had was mind blowing.  We came away with some good ideas for Ron’s future tiny house.

We did stop at the Vermont Country Store and spent about 30 minutes there  Always a fun place to spend some time.  An we took advantage of their picnic tables to eat our lunch.

Then we headed to Burlington and our hotel for the weekend.  Our biggest problem that night was finding a place to eat.  We ended up at the Blue Bird Barbecue just a few miles down the road.  A nice place, with good music, great food and staff.  If we ever are up that way again, we stop there again.

The first workshop at the Mother Earth News Fair did not start until 9:30 am.  So late in the day for us.  Don’t they know they could squeeze a few more speakers or workshops in if they started them at 7 am?

We were one of the first in line on Saturday morning.  Pretty quickly the line grew.  Ron noticed that very few of us were on our phones.  Everyone was talking with the people standing around them.   Where are you from, what brings you here, what do you do and what are you hoping to do, all of these questions made for great conversation.

And how very cool.  MEN posted a photo of people standing in line and there is Ron, in the teal shirt and hat.  I had not bothered to bring my camera thinking I would take any photos with my phone.  But I really didn’t.  Really just too busy going to workshops and talking with people.

Ron was determined to get a shot of me wearing our Tiny House Farm T shirt in front of the best Mother Earth News Fair sign he could find.  We had to wait for the last workshop to finish and the speaker to get packed up.  Then we dodged around the fair staff and got the shot.

On Sunday, we were again among the first in line.  It was hot there, but the breeze kept if from being unbearable.  All of the workshops were held inside which helped with the heat, but not the noise.  The layout made everything just too close.

Ron seems to have a knack for finding former military to talk to.  Everywhere we go, he finds one or two guys who have also served.  There is a connection there, and they have it.

The last workshop ended at 4:30 and as we had already cleared out of the hotel, we pointed the wagon north and headed home.   The plan was to stop along the way for dinner, but the GPS sent us home via NY Route 8.  There was lots of beautiful trees, water and rocks, but the only restaurants we saw were either packed or closed.  So we just kept driving.  Such a relief to pull into our driveway.  We hugged Jo, unloaded everything, grabbed something eat and headed to sleep.

We had a long weekend, but it was great fun and as usual we learned a lot.  I went to sessions on having chickens, making sourdough bread, fermenting veggies, being a homestead medic, preserving veggies, and several on using herbs.  Ron focused more on organic growing, small farms and  the headline speakers.

We have already started saving up for our trip to the Seven Springs Fair in September.