Bucko's Backyard

By Paul Fersen

Twenty years ago I wrote about building my house. When I built it, I assumed it would be the last house I would ever live in, but things change, lives take directions we never imagined and things we consider indelible, suddenly become untenable. What we needed then seems a bit much now. It’s time to build a new one.

Am I sad about this? Yeah, there’s a part of me that looks around at the familiar timbers that I put into place, the pegs I drove in, the walls I painted. I can remember every step of the process down to the most minute detail, simply because I did it myself with a little help from my friends. But is it devastating? No. In fact, I’m pretty excited about it, because this gives me the opportunity to do it all over again, albeit on a smaller scale. Building this house myself is the best time I ever had with tools and clothes on. Mimi and I designed it together, built it together, and raised our children here. Looking back on our life together it was, aside from farming, the most fun we ever had, because we were totally focused on our home. Today we’re focused on everything but our home, just trying to survive and somewhere we seem to have lost the reason for moving to Vermont. We’re tired of waving at each other on the road. » read more

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By Paul Fersen

Consider yourself lucky. You live in Vermont, a bastion of hardscrabble self-sufficiency. Now that the bubble has burst and the portfolio that brought you here isn’t worth spit, it’s time for you to reevaluate your circumstances. Fortunately you were lucky in choosing Vermont as a haven back when things were good and you figured your bonuses would continue to flow ad infinitum. What once was a symbol of status may well become a symbol of refuge. » read more

By Paul Fersen

Thirty years ago I came to Vermont in search of something different, something a bit more adventurous. Having never lived north of South Carolina, a winter in Vermont was quite an adventure, but as it turned out, just the beginning of a long journey. It was only supposed to be for a winter. It turned out to be a lifetime. This past summer and fall, I went looking for a new adventure. I went to Alaska to spend two months "in the bush" as they say working as a guide at a fishing lodge.

While Vermont is still home, it now seems a bit tame, or perhaps it is me that is tame. My first tiny cabin in the National Forest has long been replaced by a much larger home in Dorset with insulation and plumbing that works. The storied and rusty old farm truck replaced by an SUV with heated seats, the woodstove by a gas model and the dirt road, though still dirt, fixed so that mud season is no longer worth mentioning. The adventure replaced by responsibility. » read more

BuckoLast summer I was in Alaska sitting on a river with an old guide. At least he seemed old. He was 65 and he'd been guiding in Alaska for years. I realized soon enough he was only a few years older than me, but his remarkably simple wisdom and experience made my admittedly full life pale a bit.

For those of you who don't understand how a magazine works, it's basically an exercise in smoke and mirrors. You are presently reading this summer column, which under normal circumstances would regale you with wondrous tales of all things green, summer and Vermont. The reality is, due to the way magazines are managed and constructed, and, more importantly printed and distributed, I am writing this column while locked in an ice-covered house, tucked deep in the coldest, darkest heart of winter. As such, inspiration is a bit hard to come by, for I am staring out the window at a landscape of stark white, streaked with the dark patterns of black leafless trees. It is beautiful, there is no doubt, but there is nothing warm in it. Now is when I should be writing next winter's column, but alas I am not that organized. » read more

Bucko!My father passed away last year. We never spent much time together, so much of Bucko’s nature came from the other side, and in particular Grandma Moon. But there is a small piece of him in here somewhere. » read more

Bucko!By Paul Fersen » read more

BuckoRobert Frost wrote in his timeless poem Mending Wall of his neighbor's conviction that "good fences make good neighbors," though there were no cows to fence in or out. Colloquialisms abound in the English language about the need for space. » read more

Buckoby Paul Fersen

It’s autumn. The trees are slowly suffocating their leaves in the rubescent ritual that is foliage and the wind whispers the first hint of brutality. For the hunter, it’s wait’s end. For the dogs in our lives, it’s show time.

Pickett, my chocolate Labrador will be four this season, having first opened his eyes in July of ‘02, now already a veteran of three seasons. The first time I saw him was the day I picked him up at a kennel in Colorado in mid-September having sent a deposit sight unseen on pedigree and parent’s pictures alone. His first act for me was to retrieve a toy mouse and bring it proudly back to my feet, drop it and look up with the expectation of yet another round. Sold.
Now to get him home. I was not about to stick him in the cargo hold. I found out that given his size, he could ride with me in an under-the-seat kennel. Fortunately he was too young to understand these kennels are generally reserved for the use of well-coiffed and bejeweled women with smarmy, aloof cats or little dogs that yip. Dogs shouldn’t yip. Pickett came through the experience unscathed and with his hunting genes in tact. On a side note, if I ever need to find another woman in my life, I will simply go to an airport with an 8-week old Lab puppy. As my son so ably puts it, “a sick chick magnet”. Translated that means I was surrounded by adoring women the minute I hit the door with Pickett in tow and the flight attendant even moved me to an empty seat in first class. His first day he was already taking care of his master. » read more