Some of you may know that I served a variety of communities around the globe as a teacher for over 30 years. I taught everything from Pre-K (Evanston, IL & Winooski, VT) through 12th grade Economics (Bloomfield, NY). I also taught graduate level coursework in Social Justice at George Mason University in the Washington, DC area. I moved around quite a bit as a teacher due to the career path of my former husband of 30 years. His work was rather specialized and we often moved to help him move up the salary ladder. It was always fairly easy for me to find teaching positions, in-part because thankfully … I carry with me excellent references from my previous administrators who appreciated the hands-on project-based real-world learning I utilized in my classrooms. My master’s degree focused on Social Science & Gifted Education …. and I was a young devotee of the Harvard professor Howard Gardener & his progressive ideas around Gifted Education and multiple intelligences. I took the ideas of all people being “gifted” in given areas and it was my job as the educator to find those hidden gifts within each student and help them shine within the content being taught but by using methods that enhanced their ability to have lasting meaningful learning.
Back in 1999-2000 … I had the pleasure of working with some very thoughtful & creative educators at The Lexington School in Kentucky who inspired my spirit to take learning further & make it even more meaningful for my 3rd graders. One of these educators encouraged me to make a folder of good memories…. sweet notes from students & parents. She told me that it would be a useful file folder to have on hand … on those days when school life becomes more difficult. Unfortunately, we all know that an educator’s life is filled with a slew of ups & downs… as we daily hear nowadays on the news. At Sharon’s suggestion, I began that school life memory folder and it truly made me smile days, weeks and years later after starting it. These notes were collected from families and children from all the places I taught … Evanston, IL … Winooski, VT … Savannah, GA … Fairview Heights, IL … Lexington, KY … Annapolis, MD … Arlington, VA … the Finger Lakes region of NY … Washington, DC … Los Angeles, CA … Seoul, Korea … Richmond, VT … Danville, VT … and North Bennington, VT.
They are still cherished today with fond memories … and I feel very fortunate to have kept up with many of these families over the years … building a global community of sorts with children that enjoyed school & wanted to come back the next day.
I’m telling you all about this memory because I want you to understand how important your kind praise means to me … when you thank me for being here in North Bennington … when you tell me how much you love my scones …. or how you couldn’t wait to get home to eat that pumpkin moon cream caramel muffin and you gobbled it down in the car …not caring about the coconut on your lap or the maple sugar caramel you’re licking off your fingers. This warms my heart so much … and believe it or not … brings forth a tear of heartfelt joy.
Thank you!
I have been collecting your kind notes … from facebook, from instagram, from the moon scones email, in texts, in voice mail, on google & yelp reviews and in the truly surprising handwritten notes I’ve received in-person. All of these notes are helpful in more ways than you can possibility understand… they reassure …they build confidence in an otherwise rather nervous soul that often worried about whether folks would ever be interested in sampling my kitchen creations. They bring a smile to my face and I am ever so grateful from the bottom of my scone slinger heart. So thankful … that I wanted to share a few recent ones that have really struck a chord in my pursuit as a baker … that cares not just about what my maple sweetened deliciousness looks like …but, what is inside … what are the ingredients that I am providing to my patrons … local ingredients … no artificial colors … no artificial flavors …no cane sugar … no short-cuts … when you are making food for people that care as much as I do about what they put into their bodies to nourish them. Whatever it is …it should be real and have ingredients that I can pronounce, can obtain locally and are wholesome in their quality.
I appreciate all of you … so much.
Thank you for helping me build this growing community of moon scones lovers that stretches as far west as Rochester & Syracuse, NY ….west to Boston & the Cape … as far south as New Jersey … and north to Montreal! They drive to moon scones from these faraway places to visit the “haunted bakery” … they drive to moon scones because they believe in my process and how I create my baked goods … they come back again and again because of the community we are building & the signature flavors I develop. Everyone is welcome at moon scones. This is one of my favorite aspects of my new role as the chief scone sllnger for moon scones. Each weekend I gaze at the folks coming up my walk and standing in my “little hall of delights” … and I am always so honored and pleased to see & listen to a wide range of generations & cultures … always eager to engage and always eager to come together socially with whomever is standing beside them. I love this. Thank you!
… a small sculpture from the artist Beriah Wall.
… a stone scone from the artist Kathy Velon …
thinking about moon scones & shirley while on a vacation walk.
I had a moment this past weekend when I actually teared up in front of some kind patrons who were feeling the love of moon scones and made me smile within.
I shared some of these stories with them.
Thank you for permitting me to be your favorite
home-spun “bespoke” micro-bakery up in Vermont.
In the words of one of my weekend patrons …
thank you for helping me have a successful second song!
Being a teacher was a truly fulfilling career
and now that I have made this change to being a small business owner …
I am so glad I’m sharing this second song with all of you.