By Merisa Sherman My grandfather called it “settin’.” The act of someone sitting on their front porch, presumably in a rickety old rocking chair passed down from generation to generation, just watching the world go by. Perhaps they would be fanning themselves and drinking a glass of sweet tea. They seem to be without a…

By Merisa Sherman All I did was pull into the Kent Pond parking lot, moving from the paved apron and onto the extremely dry crushed rock. My mountain bike slipped out from underneath me and I found myself floating slow motion through the air. My left hand hit the ground and I saw my lower…

By Merisa Sherman It is an absolutely gorgeous Saturday morning in May. The daffodils, pansies and just mowed lawn are now covered with 4-6 inches of dense marshmallow snow and the sky is a stunningly bright blue. There atop the never-before-skied headwall, stands extreme skier and Pittsfield resident, Mark Bragg, prepping for one of the…

By Merisa Sherman Tarentaise. Ascutney Mountain. Grafton Maple Smoked Cheddar. Vermont Smoke & Cure Summer and Fortuna’s Cacciatorini Sausages paired with some fresh made six-grain bread and all washed down with some Mac & Maple Cider. It’s amazing to think of all the wonderful foods we have in Vermont just at the tip of our…

By Merisa Sherman Leaning on my shovel, I take the bandanna from my Carhartts and wipe the sweat from my brow. It’s hot in Vermont and I can’t seem to stop the sweat from burning my eyes as I work on this garden reclamation project. A beautiful and productive garden until Irene came through, we finally admitted…

By Merisa Sherman Let the rain kiss you.   Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.  - Langston Hughes The rain would announce its arrival by the pitter patter of drops on the roof. A random drop here and there until they would find their…

By Merisa Sherman It has been cold. Not that wonderful “let’s go skiing” kind of cold but the kind of cold that gets you way down deep in your spine. A spine-chilling cold that you never seem to get away from. My mom would tell me to turn the heat up, but I’m the kind…

By Merisa Sherman My internal alarm clock woke up a little bit extra that morning and I could feel the change in the air even from inside our house. Instead of pulling the blankets back around me, I quietly snuck out of bed and down the stairs. The curtains were down in the main room,…

By Merisa Sherman I have a nook in my house where there’s a chair there, just out of the morning sun, where I can see the tree tops. They descend in a steepish yet skiable pitch down toward the valley on the right, kind of like Highline. There’s a second bit of dull greenish-brown peeking…

By Merisa Sherman When I was young, my mom used to feed us breakfast and send us out the door with instructions not to return home until 5 p.m. to get ready for dinner. I didn’t have a backpack or money or anything except the complete and utter feeling of freedom to create and imagine and…

By Merisa Sherman There’s a bench on Kent Pond, where I like to go and sit. It’s not the world’s most comfortable or beautiful bench, just some old 2x4s bolted together and cemented into the ground. But it’s there just the same, beckoning one to come and sit and stare out across the water and out toward…

by Merisa Sherman Like all of you, this past weekend threw my life into turmoil. Two of my four jobs have disappeared in the blink of an email and our beloved ski resort has turned off the lifts. As the threat of COVID-19 virus grows stronger, increasing numbers of our community are withdrawing to the safety of…

Living the Dream by Merisa Sherman Megan was 4 when I took her up the K-1 Gondola for the first time. She was absolutely bursting at the seams. She wanted to show me everything that she knew, where this was, where that was. She wanted me to know that she knew what I knew about skiing and…

By Merisa Sherman I get off the lift and look to the left. It’s there. A bright beacon for all to see marking the new summit of Skye Peak: the Superstar Glacier. You can’t see around the mound anymore, almost getting a crick in your neck as you look upward. There are people on the side of…

By Merisa Sherman The morning started with freshies. Road crew was working so hard, but had yet to plow my road. It was just gorgeous — an untouched ribbon of white, so inviting as the snow reached from treeline to a not-quite-hidden guard rail. The lights from the condos were glowing through the  5 a.m. darkness…