Tag Archives: Vermont

Vermont Cussing

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vermontcussingYou know? I almost feel guilty picking on Vermont. With a total population of 600K, many of the cities I’ve lived in are larger than that entire state.

But, when I see a sign like this one, I just can’t help cracking a smile. It was posted under a stack of DVDs professing to show real Vermonters making real Maple Syrup the real old-fashioned way. Since I neither bought nor watched the DVD, I have no idea what “Minor Vermont Cuss Words” are.

But it does beg the question(s) – Are there also Major cuss words when a Minor cuss word doesn’t get the job done? And are Vermont cuss words unique? Then what are New Hampshire cuss words? Or is it just that there’s Vermont and then the other 49 states when it comes to cussing?

And why the hell (oops, pardon my cussing!) were they cussing anyway while making syrup? Drop the vat on their toe? Stick their finger in the boiling syrup? Sample it while it’s too hot? My experience is that cussing draws attention, and attention is the last thing you want when you’ve just done something stupid … like sticking your finger in the hot vat.

So many questions – I guess I should have bought the DVD!

Green-ness

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maplesyrupNot that I’m a paragon of environmental responsibility, but something today caught my eye. I was watching maple syrup being harvested, processed and offered for sale. In the attached gift shop, where the maple syrup was for sale, were t-shirts boldly announcing that “Vermont was Green, before Green was cool.”

The store owner, a seventh-generation Vermonter, was proudly describing the number of gallons of sap that make up one ounce of syrup, and the huge amount of wood that’s burned to boil the sap.

It is absolutely unclear to me how harvesting sap is “sustainable.” What do the harvesters do to restore the health of the maple trees? Or do they expect nature to restore the trees for them? And who replenishes the massive amounts of firewood they burn reducing sap to syrup? And do they have any idea how environmentally unfriendly burning wood is? In California, wood fireplaces are illegal!

The irony of this environmentally unfriendly operation calling itself “Green” was just appalling!

The picture? Oh, it was bottles of different grades of maple syrup in the tasting room. I thought it was pretty.