Shelburne, VT is a cute perfect little New England town with lots of picturesque historic buildings and farms and fantastic architecture dotted all over the landscape. My house is right in the village on a little loop drive that abuts the LaPlatte Nature Park. There’s about fifteen little houses on little lots in my little loop neighborhood. There’s a big field for wandering around in and the sledding hill and the community gardens all right here. One could walk to the grocery store or the PO or the hardware or one of a few decent restaurants via the woods, should one choose to do so. It’s not some vast wilderness, tho. It’s a little city wilderness. It’s owned by the Nature Conservancy. Pass two houses, go by the community garden, enter the woods and go down the steep trail, take a right at the bottom, go over the little bridge and walk a ways and you’ll get to LaPlatte Falls. It’s frozen, because it’s been sub-zero for weeks. I bought this stupid over-priced, shoddy-built, teeny-tiny, leaky cold wet house with no central heating in central Vermont because I can walk out the door and think: This is it. This is my town. These are my woods. These are my falls. This is my everything. I am here.