The Weekend We’ve
Been Waiting For
By Jill D. Montgomery

The weather we had this past weekend is the reason Vermonters stay in Vermont.

It is why we stay sane, it’s why we patiently wait for summer all winter long even through the possibility of seven or eight months of snow. It is why people from away move here and it is why we native Vermonters don’t pack up our bags and move away. The memory of 30 degree below zero weather fades as fast as our shoulders and noses get sunburnt on a weekend like the one we just had.

The temperature was perfect. It was the kind of heat that manages to thaw right to the bone and ease old arthritic aches and pains. We find ourselves turning our faces to the sun in the same way the blossoming flowers in our gardens do. We stretch and catch every ray just like a lazy cat in the window.

We strip the sheets off our beds and rush to get them out on the clothesline. The smell of the linens as we bring them inside crisp and dry is indescribable. It is as close as you can get to the smell of sunshine.

We weed gardens and replant veggies that were washed away in the recent onslaught of rain. We daydream about red ripe tomatoes even as we find stakes for the spindly plants we bought. In the bright sunshine we find it easy to ignore the fact that most of Vermont’s crop of tomatoes get ripe in the kitchen window over the sink or in a brown paper bag.

We find ourselves fighting over the chance to mow the lawn and feel the sun beat down on our hair. The smell of the newly mown grass transports us back to our childhood. That smell followed us as children through catching fireflies, playing flashlight tag and camping out in the backyard.

And because it’s Vermont, the lawn is a deep pure green that matches the trees, that match the hills, that match the mountains. Vermont’s nickname, "The Green Mountain State," was surely given to us by someone who cherished Vermont’s brief summer as much as we do.

We adults find ourselves mimicking our children as we think of excuses to stay outdoors. We cook outside, we eat outside, we greet the day outside with a cup of coffee in our hands taking deep breaths of the clean summer air.

We bring the outside in every night as we sleep with every window open the better to catch the breezes We lie in bed and listen to the night creatures that enjoy the gift of good weather just as we humans do. First comes the chirp of the peepers from the swamp, and then the call of the owls up in the hills behind our house.

My favorite excuse to sit in the sun is watching baseball. Our son plays and someone has to sacrifice and go and enjoy the sun—I mean be supportive and cheer him on. There is something very satisfying and relaxing about summer ball. Gone are the freezing cold days of coaching during one of Vermont’s spring seasons. Gone is the need for coffee, gloves, a winter jacket, and heavy socks to keep the body warm.

What is here is the time and temperature to enjoy the sport the way most of the rest of the country enjoys it. Summer ball is bright sunshine with shades on, along with sunscreen and mosquito repellent. All that is required is an affinity for traveling and the ability to be perfectly happy sitting on a set of bleachers, soaking up the sun!

It is weather like this, the sun, the heat, the summer smells, that bind us to Vermont. If at times we’re more like the grasshopper than the ant of the old fable, and find ourselves just loafing around in the bright summer sun for the pure enjoyment of it, well we’ve earned it. We survived the rainiest May on record.

Jill Montgomery and family live in the green hills of Braintree where you’ll find them outside these days, doing something, anything at all, that gets them in the sunshine!

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