I got out for another cruise around in my chair yesterday. Despite the muddy driveway and an unfortunate run-in with some wintertime dog shit, it was an enjoyable afternoon. My mom and I explored the old cemetery, a few hundred yards from our house. 

A few dozen graves on a small square cut into the woods east of Gilman Road, it's easily missed. Visitors find no place to park a car; without regular maintenance it would disappear into the woods altogether. A short distance north sits the oldest surviving house in the area, a small 1 1/2 story brick number that dates from the late 18th century. A bit further south is a big 1810 brick colonial at the corner of Hines Road. As in Hinesburg.

The graveyard is situated atop a hill high above the La Platte River, only you'd never know it. I imagine there was a time, before all those trees took back their rightful places, that there would've been a commanding view to the east. 

The oldest stones take up the back of the property, just inside the fence before the drop-off to the river. Five or six small, thin, nearly identical headstones dating from the 1840s make up a tidy back row. Every stone faces the road, precisely perpendicular. Most are barely legible.

If you've ever taken a look around an old cemetery, you know that the deceased ages vary much more than you might care to know. At quick glance we noticed the grave of four-year-old Sally. The most prominent monument remembers the reverend's wife, who passed in 1875. Another memorable stone was engraved with both date of birth and death, a seemingly rare practice for the period (most indicate date of death and age) 1767-1864. 

I just spent far more time writing about that cemetery than I did exploring it. On the way back to the house I observed a number of things I hadn't quite noticed in the hundreds of times I'd approached the driveway. Little things, the three different species of evergreens alongside, and the view of the trailhead parking lot through the woods. The things you see when you take the car away.