Mud Season: How One Woman's Dream of Moving to Vermont, Raising Children, Chickens and Sheep, and Running the Old Country Store Pretty Much Led to One Calamity After Another

It took me a minute to decide between three and four stars. If there were a 3.5 star rating I would go with it. First of all, the fact that the author admits that only approximately 78% of this memoir is true was a turn-off for me. I kept wondering about which parts were fiction. I wanted to hear more about how home schooling her son turned out, but she didn't continue with this story. I can only speculate that her wild and crazy life took over and that she neglected the home schooling. Her husband and children sounded like adaptable, interesting people, but they were relatively minor characters in her story. This book centered on the author's thoughts and activities. I was hoping to laugh more, but many of her stories were what I call "cringe-worthy." They were interesting, no doubt about it, but I found myself thinking about Murphy's Law--"Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." I'd find myself feeling lucky that I never decided to move to Vermont and open a country store, that I never encountered a skunk, or decided to adopt lambs. I guess the bottom line is that I don't generally laugh at other people's misfortunes. I was never one to find it funny to watch someone slipping on a banana peel. But I didn't cry because there was nothing really heartwarming about the story. There were some pleasant stories--finding the waterfall--feeding the lambs--but nothing to awaken one's spirit.Now admittedly the title didn't promise anything very profound. I did think, though, that I'd be laughing a bit more. I might have chuckled a couple of times. It's well-written, it's well-organized but, for me, it's not the kind of book I will treasure or want to read again. It made the time pass quickly and there were a few amazing stories--at least one that I'd never heard before (which makes me wonder if it was part of the fictionalized part). This book chronicles a wild, crazy, messy experiment in small-town living. I think it's worth reading unless perhaps you're one of those people who has a long reading list of fascinating books. I don't. So I tend to read anything I think will invite me into someone else's life for a bit and perhaps make me more appreciative of my own.

I read "Good Grief" first because it had better reviews and that was a huge mistake. It didn't really seem to be Vermonty enough. But "Mud Season" was a total joy and I thought it was great. I find her humor and the way she describes all the predicaments she and her family got into to be hilarious. The encounter with the state trooper while in a bathrobe made me really laugh and her little potty mouth always made me smile.Living in Vermont is hard enough with the seasons and not having any privacy in the small towns. You have to be kind of a rugged person, which I'm not, so I moved as soon as I was old enough. But then she and her family go and make it all so much more difficult (and really funny) by trying to run a country store, raising chickens and even a couple of sheep.She pretty much nails how people are there, which is kind of endearing once you get used to them. So what if Lake Willoughby isn't on the border of Canada. It's close enough.I'm glad I read both, but "Mud Season" is definitely the best of the two.Oh, and she's definitely right about half the roads being dirt and becoming impossible to drive on during mud season. Plus the 911 calls and the dispatcher's responses are priceless.

We’ve considered moving to Vermont and this book’s main goal seems to be to tell you how to do everything wrong if you have starry-eyed dreams about Vermont. Having lived in Maine for many years, you have to know that you must do your homework before moving to a place with long winters, people who will always view you as from “away,” and live there awhile before you spend all your savings trying to be a local. It doesn’t work that way. Kind of a silly book about how not to move to Vermont. I couldn’t believe the author could be so unprepared and make so many untimely and impulsive choices, like buying the town store and losing money trying to keep it afloat when they had never run a store before. A silly book.

I personally know and love Ellen and so loved reading her story. You see one of the most endearing qualities about folks who choose to make Vermont home is that rarely will you ever hear them complain. So...although I know Ellen and her family, I had never actually heard their story. Being a Vermont transplant myself, this book made me smile, a lot, and then, because I could relate, it practically brought me to tears a time or two as well. Vermont is a tough place to make a living but is equally hard to leave once you've experienced its attributes. Thank you Ellen for sharing your thoughts, stories, failures, victories and recipes with me. I have to add that I rated your memoir with a little stickiness for two reasons. The first because of the unnecessary foul language, but...it's you so I was willing to smile and read on. The second aggravation for me was it not being longer...I hated to see it end. I do want to try every one of your recipes, I now understand why my son has always loved eating at your house, wow your recipes sound so amazing!