Learning to Fly 


The smell of fresh baked goods fills the air. It’s a spring day in Strafford, Vermont, where Clover McHugo is making a strawberry rhubarb pie. Just past the vegetable gardens and fruit trees, Nigerian goats spring about: Mochi, Manju, and Nugget, to name a few.

Clover, 35, lives on this land with her spouse, Kat, where together they run Duck Duck Goat Farm and sell a variety of baked goods, produce, and maple syrup to the local community.


It had always been their dream to settle down here and set up shop. This was years ago, before Clover was known as Clover, and before taking the steps to undergo gender transition at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC).

Planting seeds


Clover grew up in Strafford, Vermont, and recalls a childhood with ample free time in the town of just over 1,000 residents.

Going to college opened up her world, and that’s where she found a passion for culture and travel. It’s also where she discovered that she could experience those things through food and cooking.

University studies led her to Scotland, which is where she met Kat. They soon started a friendship that would blossom into a lifelong partnership. “She's my person,” Kat said. “Being with her is where home is.”

Years following, Clover pursued her love for cooking, first going to culinary school and later working in a professional kitchen. It was a demanding world, and anxiety and depression quickly set in.

“After culinary school, I didn’t feel at home in the male-dominated pressure cooker of a stressful restaurant kitchen,” she said. “I still loved cooking and exploring the world through the foods of different cultures, but I needed to do it differently.”

During the pandemic, Clover and Kat moved to Vermont, and soon after started Duck Duck Goat Farm. But something still didn’t feel right.

A new path forward

“It’s like someone told you, you can learn to fly if you want to,” Clover said. “Once I knew that, it was just kind of, well, I have to do it.”

“Transition was a step I had to take to fully shed that extra layer of discomfort that I was still holding onto,” Clover said. Kat was supportive of her wife’s decision, and didn't want to see her burned out again.

The couple knew it would be a process: Paperwork, appointments, long-term procedures like hormone replacement therapy, surgery, laser hair removal, and more paperwork.

It wouldn’t happen overnight. “Going through this transition has shown me just how much of an absolute superstar she is,” Kat said. 
Clover worked with Cheryl A. Sturgis, MSPAS, PA-C, at DHMC. Not only did Sturgis walk Clover through the medical side of the transition, but she was also there for emotional support. “She always did an excellent job of making me feel cared for in the process,” Clover said.

This meant setting goals, tracking progress, and coordinating treatments with different departments at DHMC, like urology, plastic surgery, and dermatology.

“She has a genuine sense of care about her,” Clover said, about Sturgis. “She always seems like she is invested in your success and in your feeling good about the process.”

Part of that process for Clover was also changing pronouns, and finding a new name. Clover knew she wanted a botanical one, and it just so happens that clovers grow all over Strafford. “I never encountered a person named that before,” Clover said. 



A season to thrive

Vegetable gardens, fruit trees, an abundance of berries—each season brings something fresh for Clover and Kat to incorporate into a variety of sweet and buttery pastries, or warm and hearty breads.

“I was really happy with the way Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center looked after her,” Kat said of Clover’s treatment. All throughout, there was a roadmap for success. “I never had to go in feeling like I was walking in blind to something,” Clover said. “I always had reassurance beforehand.”

Together at home, Kat and Clover are “quite homebody people,” Clover said, watching craft and gardening shows, and reading science fiction and fantasy when they’re not running the farm.

They’ll also check out local hiking spots and thrift stores as ways to treat themselves. After all, Clover has had to overhaul her wardrobe over time.

“Now other people can see the person that I've been in love with all these years,” Kat said. With the support of their providers at DHMC, and the surrounding community, they are building the life they’ve always imagined.