Hard state. Cold weather.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Peter Miller, once of Stowe and now of Colbyville just off Route 100 in Waterbury, has devoted his life to photographing a vanishing species of Vermonter. That species includes farmers, loggers, artists and other self-reliant people who’ve eked out a living in the Green Mountains. A former Life photographer, Miller’s eight books are award winners. He was named Vermonter of the Year in 2006 and was honored by the state Legislature for his contribution to the culture of Vermont. Miller, a sharp, reflective and demanding observer, has written off and on for the Stowe Reporter for 40 years. He knows Vermont.

Cold penetrates my neck, creeps down my backbone, seeps into my limbs ... cold ... I am cold ... my arms ... fingers ... toes.

Thirty days of below zero weather since December, not counting March— another eight to 10? I wear socks, flannel pajamas and sometimes a sweater when I slip under the wool blanket and duvet in my unheated bedroom. My house is frigid, as I cannot afford to keep the thermostat above 60 and I turn it down at night. I insulate, I conserve, I do what I can, but the energy costs are ever more each year. This winter I have spent, so far, close to $5,000 on fuel oil, propane and firewood. I am only warm when I sit in front of my wood stove.

The temperature soars to just under 50, then, like a burst bubble, dips to 10 below, sometimes in a day. The snow-rain-sleet blends into a porridge that flows onto roads and sidewalks, settles on walking paths and invades garages; by alchemy it smoothes into the hated black ice.

The cold that freezes my body is matched by the heat it creates in the belly of my psyche — the heat of anxiety. After all this, how am I going to pay my bills?

This anxiety attack hit hard when I, and many homeowners throughout Vermont, received my property tax bills last summer and saw the increase in the homestead education tax. That bill might as well have stamped on it: “You cannot afford Vermont!”

This past fall, I was traveling through Vermont, delivering my new book to bookstores and talking to strangers. People told me they placed their homes for sale or had seen their neighbors put up for sale signs right after the tax bill was in the mailbox.

I talked to a young woman who lives in Wolcott. “My husband and I both work, but I don’t know how we can make it.” Worry lines were creasing her forehead and puckering her natural beauty.

“My house has been on the market for a year and no one has made an offer,” said a store clerk. “I want to leave but I have to sell first.”

Bleak it is. Vermont property taxes are among the 10 highest in the country. Last week in Vermont, the average cost of fuel oil was $3.92 a gallon, propane $4.34 a gallon, gasoline 3.59 a gallon (eight cents higher in Waterbury), electricity 17.05 cents per kilowatt-hour. Food costs keep climbing in this, “one of the 10 coldest years in U.S. history.”

A friend in New Mexico pays a property tax of $1,400 for their adobe home, and it is appraised at half a million and could be sold for more. When they lived in Middlesex, they paid $3,900 property tax on a house they sold for $150,000.

Another refugee Vermonter living in Florida tells me if I sold and bought and lived in his community, I would save over $5,000 a year in living costs.

Many of us “new poor folk” are independent Vermonters, meaning we work for ourselves. Creative people (I’m a writer and photographer), mom and pop owners of village stores, people who work the woods or land, carpenters, landscapers, repair people — these are the Vermonters who crafted Vermont and gave it a flavor so different from most of America. Many of us are bereft of any lifeline — associations, lobbyists, and public relations firms. Bankers don’t like our sporadic cash flow. We are the grunts of Vermont.  

Many a Vermonter has a certain foreboding of their future. Most of us can’t think of buying some of the lush windows and kitchens shown in ads. Then there are the magazines that advertise estates for sale that run from $900,000 to $3 million or more. The thrust here appears to be that Vermont wants the newcomers with big bucks and then hit them with a property-education tax that makes them shed dollars like melting snowflakes. But hey, many a new Vermonter can afford it.   

“What are we going to do, just work for a bunch of wealthy people?” said the son of a farmer who sold his farm. “We can’t afford to buy a home or land in the town we grew up in.”

I love Vermont — have ever since I moved here in 1947. I love the hillside farmers, the beauty of the land. I have written five books that are considered classics on rural Vermont. I have been recognized as Vermonter of the Year and honored by the Vermont Legislature and the U.S. Senate for my documentation of rural Vermont. “You are a treasure to Vermont,” I was told. “You can’t move away.”

I don’t want to leave Vermont, which has been such a large part of my life and soul, but I cannot afford to live in Vermont, own a home and pay property taxes and support the money our towns and state say they need so they can support me.

We need a return to the values that made this state free-thinking and bound by a common unity of spirit. We need to embrace the democratic principles of governance by the people. Legislators need to hear our stories so they can make informed decisions on funding during their sessions in Montpelier.

Wishful thinking, and meanwhile, many creative people have given up and taken salaried positions. Rob Hunter, the director of Frog Hollow gallery in Burlington, reports a number of artists stopped paying dues, as they cannot afford to create art they can’t sell. True, it is tough all over for creative people. The copyright is under attack. With the money crunch, buying artwork is not an option for average Vermonters. I put off repairing my car and winterizing my house because I need to pay taxes and buy fuel oil.

The Central Vermont Community Action Weatherization group was going to winterize my old house and lower my heating costs 15 percent, they said. So a flock of them finally showed up, white suited and wearing helmets like astronauts. They found vermiculite that I put in the attic over 30 years ago.

“It has asbestos in it,” the boss said. “We don’t work in houses like these.” And they left. White suits and helmets marched out. He promised I would get a sample testing of the vermiculite. I never did.

Alpine skiing, my favorite sport, is too expensive and new Vermonters have posted most of the land I used to hunt birds on. Instead of thinking of new book projects, I repair my house, shovel snow, spread salt, haul firewood. Because of the cost of gas, I don’t drive around the state looking for photographs or people to talk to. I stare aghast at my shrinking income, but I thank God for Medicare.

We self-employed Vermonters grumble but we have carried on, and every so often we remember that we live in beauty. That’s the Vermont Way, and I think it is coming to an end.

This tome started out as a rant but it is not. It is a fact and a warning that perhaps the people who run this state have shot themselves in the foot. It is getting to the point that self-employed Vermonters might do better going on the dole and using state and federal funds to pay their bills.

The cold that travels down my backbone, that seesawing of temperatures, is here to stay, says Roger Hill, our knowledgeable northern Vermont meteorologist.

Roger gave me the statistics on minus-zero days this winter in my region. He said this cold, ice, flooding and blizzards are likely to become a constant for residents of Canada, North America and Britain, according to a study at Rutgers University.

I love my home state, but I can’t afford to own my house, and now I hear rents are way too high, too. Well, my old house is an anachronism and so am I. I have to minimize or go off the grid. I do have an out, and it is my 18-foot, 45-year-old Air Stream trailer. But damn it makes my Jeep over-indulge at the gas pump.

Peter Miller is a photographer and author who recently published “A Lifetime of Vermont People,” a collection of photos and stories on rural Vermonters created over the past 63 years. He is 80 years old and lives in Colbyville.