Do Not Be Alarmed

This is only a blip... a singularity, better known as the "January thaw".

Winter's not done with us yet. 

Living In the Boonies

I made a quick stop at our local grocer on Sunday to grab a few staples: bread (hurray for Cyrus Pringle), cheese, coffee, and Jameson's (time to make some more Irish cream). A visiting couple ahead of me was passing back and forth their cell phone sharing a call. I couldn't help but overhear "We're in the boonies, skiing the Sugarbush, up in Vermont".

In the boonies, my town? What in tarnation did they mean by that?

Wikipedia says~

The word boonies referring to the term Boondocks was introduced to English by American military personnel serving in the Philippines during the early 20th century, a derivative of the Tagalog word Bundock meaning mountain. A term that evolved into American slang used to refer to the countryside and rural, isolated wilderness. Not to mention as an adjective it can mean "ignorant", "uncultured", "illiterate", or "naive".  

I'm pretty certain their statement wasn't derogatory, more likely referring to the valley as rural isolated wilderness. Rural I agree with: no stop lights, more gravel roads than paved, rolling hills dotted with cows and sheep and yaks and pigs and horses and kids and dogs, a gazillion acres of gardens (in season) and flanked by mountains as far as the eye can see. Isolated wilderness? If you were to ask the skier that was chased by the Bull Moose at Sugarbush a couple weeks back, he might swear to you "this is one savage place". But other than an occasional visit from a run amok critter we live in a fairly civilized modern community. It just happens to be full of knock your socks off beauty and a lot of friendly down home people. And if that's what makes it the boonies then I'm down with that.