As a Vermonter I know what you will be thinking next year, January 15th at 4:45pm.

You'll be thinking: "It's lighter today than it was yesterday!"

And that will make you glad. And you will smile.

And think: in three weeks comes ground hog day. I can make it that far! Then you will leap forward hopefully in similar blocks of time: town meeting, sugaring, green up day, planting peas, lilacs in bloom and then ...(you've made it!) the longest, most wonderful day of the year - June 21st..

And (ohmygod) tomorrow will be shorter and winter begins.

Vermont is two thirds hope and one-third nostalgia.

"April", T.S. Elliot once said, is "the cruelest month."
" Breeding lilacs of the dead land.
mixing memory and desire
stirring dull roots with spring rain."

Vermont is a perpetual April!

And we should be glad. For April's hope sustains us together in this northland of cold, muddy, cloudy, windy, summer-challenged, forested granite.

Together in our beloved little Republic of Vermont.