A beautiful day for a Sunday drive, as we decided to engage in one of our rare shopping days. We are not travel shoppers, preferring to meander back roads where we can stop for picnics, picture-taking, funky local landmarks, or delicious food.
But one of our goals in coming to Vermont was to purchase some new light fixtures for our home. A couple of years ago our son-in-law, a fine cabinetmaker, built a beautiful new kitchen for us, and these two years hence we've had wires hanging from the ceiling where fixtures should go...
In this tough economy we're dedicated to supporting local producers of the things we need. After some research seeking made-in-USA fixtures, we decided the nicest selection was manufactured by Hubbardton Forge of Vermont. They run the gamut of traditional wrought-iron Colonial styling to super-modern industrial stuff - just beautifully made.
So our trek today began with a trip to Hand Made in Vermont, their local distributor in Wallingford. We found just the right thing, kind of Zen-ish, quiet, clean designs.
The shop itself is in a beautiful old stone building that originally housed a forge whose sole purpose was producing pitchforks. Can you imagine an era when forging pitchforks was a viable livelihood?! How times have changed....
Afterwards, we zipped over to the Vermont Country Store in Weston. Anyone who's seen their catalogues knows they have an amazing array of items some of us "oldsters" remember from our childhoods, such as Lemon-Up Shampoo and pine tar soap, weather sticks, Lanz nighties, Teaberry Gum and old penny candy you can't find anywhere else anymore.
We admit to being disappointed, however, by how many of the products there wear "Made in China" labels, and wonder why is this necessary? The store is packed to the gills with stuff - how much better if there was less on the walls and counters, and most, if not all of it, manufactured here in the States. Calling this a country store feels a bit like calling a pot of artificial flowers a "plant." We picked up a few USA-made items: socks and edible goods, and moved on.
The day's trek ended with a tour of sweet villages nestled into the lush, green hills as we made our way back to our campground. Vermont at its best, like everything else, is small and simple and sprung from something organically its own. Zen-ish.
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