(Or: How We Survive Mud Season)
Spring arrives slowly in Vermont. It does not burst onto the scene with tulips and linen dresses the way it does in warmer places. Instead, it arrives cautiously, like a guest testing the temperature of the lake with one toe.
By the time Easter rolls around, winter is technically over, but the ground is still deciding what it wants to be. Snowbanks shrink into gray sculptures. Dirt roads soften. Boots become the most sensible footwear in town.
This is what we call mud season.
For locals, mud season is less a nuisance than a ritual pause between winter and summer. The ski crowds have gone home. The summer visitors haven’t yet arrived. The town grows quiet again, and we settle into a slower rhythm.
At Swift House Inn, this is the time when we begin dreaming about the gardens.
Seed trays appear in sunny windows. Herbs begin their careful return. The kitchen starts planning the first dishes that will eventually feature edible flowers and early greens from the property. Outside, the ground still looks like winter’s aftermath, but indoors, spring is already underway.
Meanwhile, the maple sugaring season is often still in full swing. Vermont sugarhouses release small clouds of steam into the cold air, and the scent of boiling sap drifts through the countryside. It’s one of the sweetest moments of the year, both literally and culturally.
Guests who visit during Easter weekend often discover something unexpected about Vermont this time of year: it’s wonderfully peaceful.
Morning might begin with a quiet yoga session at the inn. Afterward, a walk through Middlebury reveals the small signs that locals watch for every year—the first crocus pushing through thawing soil, the return of pedestrians not wearing coats, the steady increase in sunlight each afternoon.
By evening, the town gathers again in its favorite way: around the dinner table. Restaurants glow a little warmer during mud season, perhaps because everyone inside has been waiting patiently for spring.
Easter in Vermont may not look like the picture postcards of blooming gardens and pastel picnics. But it carries its own quiet beauty: maple syrup simmering in nearby woods, muddy boots by the door, and the unmistakable sense that the long winter is finally loosening its grip.
Around here, that’s how we know spring has truly begun.
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