I have been living in the same small town in Vermont for 27 years. It feels like this is where I was meant to be. I am wondering what does it take to love a place?

The first time I came to Vermont, it was winter. A foot of fresh snow had fallen on top of the two feet of base. My neighbor, who was not my neighbor yet, was sitting on the front stoop of the family’s old wooden house that over time had merged with the shed and then the barn, to become a long, uneven structure, so common in Vermont. The young mom, who had grown up in the large wooden house along with her 11 siblings, sat outside watching her little boys, dressed in snowsuits and fleece hats, tunnel, creating snow caves where they would sit. Across the road, her dad’s old jersey cow, with curling horns, stood by the fence waiting for grain.

Now, the parents of those boys have been my neighbors for almost three decades, the grandparents who raised their large family in the old farmhouse have passed, as has the man I came here to marry, as has the old cow. The boys who tunneled in the snow grew up and went off to school and came back to raise their own families here. Instead of an old cow, now a flock of sheep stands waiting for feed. In place of a neatly trimmed lawn, there grows an organic vegetable garden. If I ever feel a bit lonely, I can wander over for small talk — someone will be outside.

Strafford is a simple place. We have lots of hiking trails and wetlands and pretty views, and miles and miles of forests where bears eat beechnuts. We have two villages, a general store, three churches, a library, three schools from nursery up to middle school, Barrett Hall for community gatherings, the Town House for weddings, funerals, and voting, and the old pink home of Senator Justin Morrill. We may have a café one day.

Our general store has recently become famous for doing what it has always done, prioritizing community well-being over profits. I try to stop in every week to pick up things — local syrup or greeting cards or organic dairy from our farming family up Rockbottom Road. Mostly, I stop in because I want to see people, and find out how everyone is doing — who has had a baby, who is getting a new hip, whose house is for sale, who is moving in, who has moved away, and who is asking for help. I might buy a raffle ticket for a local charity or just give Melvin, Sue, and Chrissy, the owners, a hug.

Our general store has been featured in the New York Times, and BBC The World. The Coburn family would like to retire, so a group of very hardworking people formed a nonprofit to raise money to buy the store and find a manager. It is coming along. As part of the Saturday chores and social visiting journey, one begins at the recycling center and the garbage gathering truck, followed by Coburn’s and Agatha’s resale shop or the Red Barn ski and skate exchange. The recycling center is where one goes to get the scoop on outdoor adventures. How is the backcountry skiing and is the ice on Miller Pond skatable? I like to keep everyone up to date with our beaver families and their dams, and to reassure them that beavers are our friends.

An Irish friend recently commented on a photo that I took while skiing with the little brown dogs behind Strafford Village, across the Ompompanoosuc. From a hill, I could see the meandering river, the beaver dam, the snowy hayfields, and the backs of houses, their barns and sheds. Forested hills framed the village as the white tower of the Town House stood to the left and the white tower of a Congregationalist church stood to the right.

My friend was reminded of “The Hunters is the Snow,” also known as “The Return of the Hunters,” a winter landscape by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a 16th century Flemish landscape painter. Curiously, I had been obsessed with Bruegel in art school, mimicking his style and colors, painting figures at work in the fields, children playing, rolling hills. Now, I wonder, did I love Strafford because of Bruegel, or did I love his art, somehow knowing I would one day live in a place that he might have painted?

I only know that I am very fond of this place, the nature, the people, the gathering places. I love how common and simple it is and how we do look after each other. Looking a little weathered and worn from bringing in wood and shoveling snow or skiing back trails, and we would have fit in nicely in a Bruegel.

Micki Colbeck is a naturalist and a writer and chair of the Strafford Conservation Commission. Write to her at mjcolbeck@gmail.com.