You don’t start you’re day hungry when you’re a guest at the October Country Inn.  Our breakfasts get you out the door satisfied and ready for your day’s activities.  But, you will be hungry later in the day.  You’re in luck.  Chef Brad’s “Crazy Side” is nearby and he is ready to fix you up and make you happy and satisfied once more.

Where else but in Bridgewater Corners would you come around a curve on Route 100A as it snakes though a river valley and not be surprised to find a neon yellow, Caribbean beach-side style food truck parked next to Alice Paglia’s farm stand, feed, and garden supply, surrounded by grazing cattle, and sheep alongside a quiet Vermont country road.  It all somehow fits.

Chef Brad will cook for you.

Chef Brad is a local boy.  Raised nearby, a Woodstock High School class of ’80 alumnus, he had earned a reputation for the outstanding meals he consistently cranked out over the many years he operated the nearby Corners Inn restaurant.  One day, other adventures called, and he packed up his spatula and knives and took to the road.

Last Summer, he came back.  With the independence and creativity one expects from Vermonters, chef Brad, living in his Volkswagen camper van, negotiated the purchase of a used food truck, made a deal with the Paglia’s, and set up shop.  It didn’t take long for word to spread.  Chef Brad is back in town and ready to cook for you.

When you’re out and about in this neck of the woods, and your stomach starts speaking to you, you know where to get that itch scratched.  It’s a short drive from Bridgewater Corners up Route 100A to the “Crazy Side.” Put in your order and Chef Brad will cook for you.   Stock up on poultry feed, or garden mulch while you’re at it.

The last big pile of snow on the back deck is quickly melting.  Buds are popping from the ends of the maple and apple tree branches.  Robins are bouncing around on the back lawn in search of worms, and the mornings are filled with twirps and chitterings as the songbirds return.  All the signs are lining up at the October Country Inn.  Winter is on the way out and Spring is around the corner as one season gives way to another.

Speaking of seasons, our guests, when they discover that we came from southern California, often exclaim: “that must have been a change!”  I always assume they’re talking about the weather.  The conversation that often follows usually focuses on the one thing that figures prominently in qualifying as a significant “change.” This is the fact that Vermont has four distinct seasons, and the associated mix of weather conditions, while California has but one (two if you count a rainy day as one season and a sunny day as another).

One “change” that comes from living in Vermont with four seasons, as opposed to living in southern California with no real seasons, has to do with the necessity for weather related planning.  In southern California, you can pretty much do anything any day of the year.  Weather doesn’t usually enter into planning your day.  It might rain, but odds are high that it won’t. So weather isn’t a factor that is usually considered, and as such, has an affect on, and becomes embedded in the regional culture.

I often overhear our guests puzzling about why their California branch office colleagues have trouble adhering to company deadlines.  The reason is clear to me.  It’s the weather.  When you’re used to being able to do anything  you want any day of the year how serious can you take a deadline.  If you can’t do it today, you’ll do it tomorrow.  What’s the big deal?  Californians are not exposed to the kind of weather restraints that are so ingrained in the East Coast lifestyle.   A Vermonter knows that he has a window in which to paint the house, for example.  If he doesn’t get it done by late September, he will probably not get another chance until next May.

The other major “change” that comes from living a four season life (the timepiece factor alluded to in the title) as opposed to the mono-seasonal California lifestyle, is that in Vermont you are always aware that time is passing.  There is an unavoidable sensory experience involved with the coming and going of seasons.  You can see the changes, smell the changes, hear the changes, and feel the changes.  This has an organizing affect on daily choices as you move through this environmental continuum.  In California, where one day is pretty much a carbon copy of any other, ten years can go by relatively unnoticed.

Yes. Our life in Vermont has been a big “change” from what we were used to in California.  It’s a change what we both relish, however.  The only regret we have, is that we didn’t make that “change” sooner.  If variety is truly the spice of life, four season living is a must.

A typical Vermont sugar house busily boiling down maple sap (notice sap bucket hanging in the foreground) to produce maple syrup.

Spring at the October Country Inn is just around the corner.  Although night-time temperatures still drop to below freezing, the March sun has enough power to bring day-time temperatures into the 40s.  The warm days cause the sap to rise in thousands of local Maple trees and signals the start of the maple sugaring season.  The collection of maple sap and the production of maple syrup is a Vermont tradition that predates Vermont itself.

Legend has it that a local Indian chief threw his tomahawk into a maple tree trunk.  The spring sun than warmed the tree and sap ran down the bark from the cut the tomahawk had made and into a container that happened to have been left under the tree.  Thinking the crystal clear liquid in this container was water, the chief’s wife poured it in with some venison she was cooking.  As the liquid boiled away a sticky sweet glaze formed on the meat adding a sweet maple flavor.  Maple syrup was thus discovered.

Whether or not this is how local Indians discovered how to convert maple sap into maple sugar.  They did figure this out somehow because the first European settlers to this region documented this use as well as adopting it.  The settlers came with metal tools, drilled holes in the tree trunks, whittled wooden spouts and hung wooden buckets under the spouts to collect the sap.  The sap was placed in iron kettles suspended over a roaring fire to evaporate the water out of the sap leaving only pure maple syrup.  Although this process has evolved some over the years, it is also still essentially the same–sap is collected, placed in a metal container placed over a flame and boiled until only maple syrup remains.

Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the United States.  By Vermont law, the maple sap that is used to produce maple syrup must contain at least 66% sugar.  Grades of Vermont maple syrup are divided into A and B, with A grades further subdivided into Fancy, Medium Amber, and Dark Amber.  These grades refer to the color of the syrup, and the color is determined by when in the season the sap is harvested.  Grade A Fancy is syrup from early season sap, and has a subtler flavor.  Conversely, Grade B is syrup from late season sap, and has a more robust flavor.

Maples are usually tapped beginning at about 30 years of age.  Each tree can support between one and four taps depending on its trunk diameter.  The average tree will produce 9 to 13 gallons of sap per season, up to about 3 gallons a day.  This is roughly equal to 7% of a tree’s total sap.  It takes about 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.  The sugaring season lasts from 4 to 8 weeks depending on the weather.  During the day, starch stored in the roots for the winter rises through the trunk as sugary sap, allowing it to be tapped.  Maples can continue to be tapped for sap until they are over 100 years old.

Of all the popular varieties of sweetener, maple syrup contains a wide array of various nutrients.  Scientists have also found that maple syrup’s natural phenols, potentially beneficial antioxidant compounds, inhibit two carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes that are relevant to type-2 diabetes.  In the study, 34 new compounds were discovered in pure maple syrup, five of them have never before been seen in nature.