Adventures with Annie: Vermont

It's summer time! and it has been awhile. But regardless it IS back--Adventures with Annie (hi soph and erika). And I'm back training with the lovely SMS T2 team in Stratton, VT. My living quarters, have, however, greatly improved since the fall. Instead of the infamous lift line, the Peru Caldwell Family, headed by the ever gracious Lilly and Sverre Caldwell, are putting me up for the summer.

Peru Caldwell house staple: The Piggly Wiggly Morning Coffee. This was taken on the first sunny day in actually 4 days. Instagram worthy, filter choice debatable, but the coffee was amazing.

The Caldwell's lawn is filled with beautiful wildflowers. The orangey-tangeriney-sunshiny-happy colored ones are my favorite. Which is strange because there are pink wildflowers too.

Oscar (a Dartmouth teammate) enjoying the first day of sunlight. Getting his bronze on.

Living in vermont for the summer, I've been exposed to a slightly different scene then normal. For one, the boys chop woods for the fire place in preparation for the (hopefully) cold winter ahead. For another, some of the biggest news in the town of Peru is that Marvin, the postmaster, is leaving. Everyone is really devastated by his departure, as he was very nice and showed everyone the stamps before purchase. Also, on a more personal note, he figured out I was living at the Caldwell's for the summer and is advising the incoming postmistress that any mail addressed to a "Ms. Hart" should be forwarded to the Caldwell's box. I met Marvin briefly, and am very saddened by his departure. The incoming postmistress has a lot to live up to.

Picture not staged. But do notice Austin's impeccable forward lean. Power application double pole practice. No wonder vermonters are so fast at skiing!

Another difference from past summers is the presence of wild animals. Isabel ran into a bear on her run one morning, we saw a porcupine waddle (and it was waddling, he was so fat and so slow), and there has been a fox trying to eat Dudley Rose and Red (the two Caldwell cats). The fox roams around the perimeter of the house, and actually got a little taste of Dudley Rose right off of the back terrace. The boys are trying to kill the fox, and Austin actually threw two kitchen knives at it one time. Needless to say, he didn't even come close to hitting, much less killing, the fox.

Austin may be terrible at killing foxes with kitchen knives, but he is good (well better than all of us) at horseshoes. In the backyard the Caldwell's have a horseshoe pit, and this afternoon we all played. Rather Austin and Isabel "played," while Oscar, Dave and I just tossed horseshoes and hoped for the best, and also looked out for each other's incoming throws. Regardless of ability level, the game was taken very seriously.

It's unclear what Oscar is celebrating here, seeing as I think he, Dave, and I scored a combined 2 points.

David showing his "impeccable" form

I tried many different techniques, none of them proving to be very effective. As it turns out, hand eye coordination is not my thing. I'm a little embarrassed by this picture, but it aptly depicts the game.

Austin, who is actually good (well better) at the game, shows the proper technique. According to Austin, "It is all about being one with the horseshoe."

Sometimes it was unclear who got the points. Everyone got involved in the decision making process. Here Oscar shows his decision making face. Cute.

Then Oscar got ahold of the phone. Selfie!

Photography by Oscar. Yeah Iz!

And then in typical Vermont fashion, it went from beautiful, sunny, swimsuit weather to thunder storming. Metal horseshoes and lightening together are not a good idea.

It wouldn't be a complete blog without the mention of both food and training. Training so far has been going well. We've done some speeds, and some light intensity, a lot of strength, and so far one OD. I'm decently tired, as I think my training in the last week and a half about equals the amount of training I did in the entire month of May. School this past term was tough--I was talking an extra class to supplement my winter courses, and I was really focused on just recovering, running the Vermont Marathon, and getting psyched for summer training. So I'm looking forward to hopefully a lot of sunny days filled with lots of fun training, but so far nothing huge to report on that end. Other than the fact that I hate double poling.

A nice big group of boys starting out the 2.5 hour classic OD

The girls!

Another typical Vermont thing: covered bridges. An artsy shot of Annie Pokorny and I with maybe an hour to go in the ski. We had a really nice ski and I am looking forward to many more!

On the baking end I've also been slacking on a little bit. After getting to the Caldwell's from Hanover, I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of relaxing. BUT I did make some cupcakes (really good cupcakes if I do say so myself) for a big gathering that Lilly hosted with some of the Stratton skiers. They were vanilla cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream frosting, with a raspberry for garnish. I think that simple cupcakes are better than crazy ones, and I think these were just about perfect. Although Gus would have preferred more raspberries. And I would have preferred muffins, but not everyone feels the same way about muffins that I do.