Welcome to the Shores of Crystal Lake

August 23, 2024 / Saloma Furlong /

I am not writing this while on vacation. I’m writing it from our new home in northern Vermont.

I have very much enjoyed bringing you stories from others who have left a Plain community and found their way to college and beyond. I will continue to do so as they come in, plus I will be posting the story I shared in June at the symposium.

Today, however, I pause these stories to tell you about the wild and crazy move David and I have made.

For nine months, David and I searched all over Lancaster County in Pennsylvania for a house we wanted to call home, and that we could afford. Our real estate agent showed us literally dozens of homes, and we made offers on five different ones. But alas, each time someone outbid us, often with a cash offer. The last bid we made was on a condo, and we offered $20K more than the asking price with the same result.

There were downsides to living in Lancaster County (heavy traffic, even on the country roads, and the tight housing market). However, I was loving the connections I was making in the area. I was part of a group of advocates for the abused in the Plain communities, and I was feeling a part of something. I am still in touch with these contacts, but I feel more removed from it now.

As we were searching for a home in Lancaster, David kept pining for Vermont. We were occasionally checking the housing market in the state where we met, but not seriously. Then one night, I was scrolling through Vermont properties and stopped short. There was a house all on one level (one of our criteria), and it had a lake view (David’s dream).

Our new home

I was startled by the feelings that came over me. I somehow felt this was going to be our next home, but I also felt a sinking feeling in my stomach because it meant that living in Lancaster County was not going to work out for us. I knew David would want to see it, so I sat next to him on the sofa and said, “I think you will want to interrupt your movie for this.” He did, and yes, he wanted to make an offer on the house.

Even though this was late March, there was a big snowstorm about to hit northern Vermont that weekend, so we couldn’t go and see it. We called David’s brother who lives in Vermont and asked him to meet our real estate agent at the house. Dan and his wife Cherry went to see it for us, and they loved it. So we made an offer, and lo and behold, we got it! David was ecstatic. I was both elated and feeling like “OOPS, we just bought a house in Vermont!

View from our deck

The following weekend when we were planning on driving up to see the house, Vermont got hit by another whopping snowstorm. When we finally did see it, we realized the house needed a lot of TLC. I was not sure about living so far north — twenty minutes from the Canadian border, two hours from our friends in the Burlington area, 45 minutes away from the nearest Lowes, Home Depot, Food Coop, or Staples. . But it also has a gorgeous view of Crystal Lake, is all on one level, has beautiful hardwood floors throughout, and we knew David is a good carpenter and I’m a good painter.

Painting the kitchen

We miss the friends we had in Pennsylvania, and we miss the Amish/Mennonite produce, eggs, dairy, and bulk foods that were available to us in Lancaster. But we have moved around enough that we know we cannot have everything.

We moved some of our belongings in May, and stayed three weeks to work on the house. Then we returned to Lancaster for several weeks before moving the rest of our belongings in late June. We have been working on house projects ever since. It is rare for us to take days off from the next project, though we do when we have company.

I have never been so sick of paint projects in my life. It feels never-ending, though I am way past the halfway mark. I will be glad when I can feel like I can now live in my house without thinking about the next project. We had four days in a row of rain, which gave me a break, but David did not get one. He has been building stairs from the kitchen to the garage.

Kitchen more recently

Each day that the weather permits, we go around the corner to the state park to swim in the lake. That is a real pleasure. David discovered that we could buy a lifetime state park pass for $2 each. We use the passes to get in as often as we like.

Our view of Crystal Lake is ever-changing. These past days, I watched raindrops drawing little circles on the surface of the water. We saw whitecaps for several days in a row, and we watched thunderclouds rolling in from the northwest on Sunday. But there are diamonds-dancing-on-the-water mornings when the sunshine hits the waves just right. There are misty mountain mornings. There are evenings of soft pink and blue sunsets. And then there are days when we see the mountains on the opposite shore through the mist and the rain.

A morning with sun sparkles on the water

We hear loons calling from the lake, sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. What hauntingly beautiful calls they have! In May and June we had a veery serenading us every evening as the sun started to set. Their call sounds a lot like a wood thrush. We hear crows in the big tree across the road pestering other birds until I go out and call their caws back to them and clap my hands and they scatter out of the tree, sometimes six at a time.

We love being able to drive around our area without traffic jams. Our first overnight in Barton, we headed up to Newport to get something for dinner. As we got on I-89, David said, “Nice that they put this highway here for us.” We laughed because there wasn’t another car in sight.

I realize this is summer, and that winters in Vermont last as long as spring, summer, and autumn combined. I am concerned about how I will do in the wintertime. I wasn’t very good at doing Vermont winters when we lived in the state years ago, and I’m older now, and we live farther north then we ever have. I’m told sun lamps are helpful, and I sure hope so. I also plan on taking breaks by spending weeks traveling to warmer places in January and possibly again in March and/or April.

So this is the story of how David and I landed in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and what has been occupying my time and energy.

Another view of Crystal Lake from our deck

I am thinking about how I want to spend my time and energy once our house projects are completed. I want to find editing jobs that I can do remotely. I’d also like to help facilitate the writing of stories from those who felt they had to leave a culture so they could grow into their potential. I don’t yet know if this will be putting together an anthology of these kinds of stories, or helping each person find their own voice and help them shape their stories.

Also, I would like to find a way to sell more of my own books. Until recently, I have felt reticent to promote myself, and lately I’ve been asking myself where that is coming from. Likely it has to do with my Amish upbringing. There was a lot of caution about women who were “forward.” Now I realize there is a positive aspect to forward women. If Kamala Harris can put herself forward to become president of the United States, I think I can put myself forward as a published author. It is time for me to schedule book talks, be more pro-active about selling my books online, and talk more about my books in general.

I realized that some of you may not know about my books. Right now there is a problem with me receiving royalties from Amazon, even though you can technically buy my latest book from their site. So if you are thinking about buying it, I would ask you to buy it from my website. Here is a link to it: Liberating Lomie: Memoir of an Amish Childhood. And here is a link to my book page where you can still buy my first two books (while supplies last) from me directly, even though they are out of print. I have a shelf full of books with envelopes all ready to go, and the post office right down the road where I mail them from. My signing pen is ready to write an inscription to you personally, or to someone you love. I look forward to fulfilling your orders.

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