Harmony Homestead Dispatch #9

On my last day in Vermont, Paul and Niki and I met Michael (otherwise known as 'the boy with the long red hair') at his shop for lunch. He restores pianos in this spooky factory space built in 1904:

I found cool stuff inside besides the instruments.

Niki played this gorgeous piano dating from 1890, and nearly had a heart attack when I told her later that it costs $36,000!

This one's a pump organ, if I'm not mistaken.

After lunch at Wicksticker's (where, like I said, we had beer and peppermint schnapps on the house), Michael took me back to the shop for a little while, but it was too nice an afternoon to work. So we went for a swim.

Our favorite swimming spot on the Poultney River.

It was a perfect last day—at the end of it Gail made her sublimely delicious enchiladas, and we had this for dessert:

(This holy mother of all fruit tarts is from a bakery in Middlebury, but she makes amazing desserts too. Gail is one of those enviable people who can, seemingly without effort, turn a random pile of raw ingredients into edible gold.)

I'm going back to Vermont in a week or so, so I'll have more photos to post then!