Mud Season by Ellen Stimson 974.3 Sti

This was a very entertaining book!  From the first visit to Vermont, Ellen and husband John were in love with it.  Of course just conjuring up an image in my mind makes me want to pack up and move there too.  They actually do move several years later, taking along their three children, cat and three dogs.  Stimson has done a wonderful job of describing their great adventure.  I thought that buying the old house that needed renovations was rather daring of them.  That looked tame to me after they bought a general store in their little village!  This woman was nuts!  Although Stimson had a lot of experience with successful businesses, neither she nor her husband had ever worked in retail (she felt that shopping retail was good enough).  But the ideas she had!  It sounded wonderful.  I wanted to be able to go in the store and shop in such a quaint atmosphere.  Not quite understanding her clientele she moved the bread in the store..... you read that right.  She MOVED the bread.  She actually was boycotted for that!   The stories I loved the most were the adventures with animals - the goat, the skunks, the chickens and then the baby lambs they paper-trained.  Interesting - very interesting.  Check out this book.  A winter like we are having this year is a perfect time to lose yourself in a good book.  As an added bonus you will be thankful that we don't have a mud season in Iowa!