When bob returns from picking up the chopper part, he wolfs down a plate that Beth has fixed for him and then checks on how the milking is progressing. Next, he has to get back in the truck and drive to New Hampshire—an hour in the opposite direction—to pick up some medicine from the vet. He’s got a single cow with an infection that needs treatment before it spreads to the rest of the herd. This time he brings Beth with him to help him stay awake for the drive.
Left to our own devices after dinner, a few of the guests walk through the fields to the river. The moon is not up yet, but the stars are bright enough to light the dirt road.
As we walk, Christina Hall tells me how her family first came here with four other families from New Jersey on a field trip sponsored by a preschool class. All of those families return annually, and the Halls make at least three other trips a year back to Liberty Hill. “We love the Kennetts,” she says. “They have become good friends.”
Two years ago, the Paradiso family joined the Halls. Tracey Paradiso admits that she wasn’t sold on the idea at first. “I thought we might be bored,” she says. “But we have not been bored for a minute.” The kids, she adds, are in the barn all day, playing with the kittens and feeding the calves. Yesterday, they spent three hours playing hide-and-seek in the hayloft.
More than once, couples have met by chance at the farm, become friends, and returned for reunions. Liberty Hill is like the grandmother’s house we all wish we still had. In fact, one couple insists that their children call the Kennetts Uncle Bob and Aunt Beth. Even business travelers stay here for the sense of returning “home” after a day’s work. “You get such a feeling of being taken care of,” says Christina.
When we get back to the house, the Kennetts have still not returned. Later, as I doze off in the soft bed under a thick comforter, I think of Bob and Beth driving back from the vet’s in New Hampshire, their truck’s headlights illuminating the twists and turns of the country roads. Maybe they talk about farm finances; perhaps they make plans for how they will manage when their younger son, David, graduates from college and joins the business. Or maybe they don’t talk at all. Maybe they just enjoy that time alone together in the cab of the truck.
In bed, I listen for the sound of the truck tires crunching on the gravel driveway, and as I drift off I imagine I can hear the comforting sound of my parents talking softly in the next room.
Liberty Hill Farm
511 Liberty Hill Road
Rochester, VT 05767
802-767-3926
www.libertyhillfarm.com
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