When I write, I have a lot of self doubt and this is how it should be. The trouble comes in when I allow it to change my message without weighing the real value of it doing so. I'm working on this. Too soon for New Years resolutions you say? What if I were to share with you that at the age of eighteen, I went to school to learn how to become a wildlife biologist. What if I also shared that I was required to take a writing course for students who fell short of college standards. Would it surprise you to read that I don't particularly believe in New Years? I believe instead in poetry. Perhaps this is why I'm not a biologist; but perhaps not.
I believe that poetry is in small part what the author intended to say, and entirely dependent on what the seeker brings to the verse. I suppose at this point, you think me a great reader of poetry? I am not, I prefer instead to experience poetry.
Take for instance today's hike, first we walked past it and then, there it was on the way back through. A nest deep in the thicket, but then again almost on us. As it hung there with it's soggy drooping form, gravity and time pulling heavily upon it, I considered how just last summer it would have been tidy, full of life and well hidden from us. It frustrates me that I never seem to be able to capture all of these things with my camera. And as if on que, there he perched, the author, a verse blending into the quiet, chickadee dee dee "Kindly refrain from doubting my good work for it was only ever intended to be the beginning."
In the fall of 2007 the regulatory and permitting process began in VT to construct a 52-mile 345 KV transmission line. The Southern Loop Coolidge Connector utilized existing utility corridors and included the construction of a new VELCO substation on Governor Hunt road in Vernon. The purpose of this project was to, "support increased electrical demand" and improve reliability.
Looking east from Fort Bridgman Rd (route 142)
Looking west from Fort Bridgman road
Back then, I remember reading local newspaper letters and listening to comments for and against the loop. To my mind, an area created for and maintained for transmission lines would be devoid of natural diversity. My decision to take a walk up the lines had more to do with seeing the view of the valley and to fulfill my goal of exploring more of the other side of Vernon.
Uphill in its entirety, the walk between 142 and Franklin road is quick and easy.
Because muzzleloader season was in progress, we planned a midmorning hike so as to avoid disturbing hunters. Even so, we crossed paths with three in this area.
The entire Southern Loop project was completed in October of 2010. Twelve years later, trees that were traded for larger utility poles still line the corridor.
While Pine and Hemlock saplings take advantage of the sunlight; I suspect that these potential giants will not be permitted to mature and recolonize this area.
So many words and we have barely left the pavement.
We located the "trail."
Oriental Bittersweet has taken advantage of an increase in sunlight at the disturbed sight. Invasive Oriental Bittersweet fruits throughout the stem while American Bittersweet only at the end.
Native plants such as Goldenrod are also present.
The constant crackling of the lines above seemed to be jolting me to consider the possibility that I had misjudged this place.
Staghorn Sumac
Goldenrod Gall
Coyote scat & Potentilla
Blackberry
Eastern Mountain Laurel
Red Oak
Could this be invasive Switchgrass?
When you aren't expecting much, it's easy to get lost in the weeds. Before I realized it, the pavement had disappeared into the distance.
Vermont Yankee nuclear power station shut down in 2014. This is what remains of it for now.
There are several paths that lead off into the woods on this walk; but we decided to stay the course, and I am glad that we did because further up there was a true find!
Around the bend and past the pine and rail,
Stands the sole example of an Eastern Red Cedar tree (Juniper) growing in the wild that I have seen in Vernon.
To those of you who are saying, "There is no such thing as a Red Cedar" and thinking that it was most likely planted there, I ask you to please set that aside. Just allow me this one Christmas wonder if you will, for I bring to it a long ago childhood of cousin summers at my grandmother's camp with all of its burnt toast, black coffee, poison ivy and the washing machine with the rollers that we operated with a crank handle to squeeze the water out of our clothes. It was behind the pump shed that drew water up from the lake and it was also used to store bamboo fishing poles, a fishing net and orange lifejackets to be worn in an old outboard metal boat kept from leaking by bubble gum... Though the camp no longer stands as it once had, deep in the wilds of Eastern Red Cedar with slamming wood screen doors at the end of a narrow twisted dirt road, it remains within me. Perhaps this is why I am not a scientist, but perhaps not.
Hornet's nest
For a short distance the corridor became more of what I had expected a transmission corridor to be.
Scat filled with undigested birdseed.
Down a hill and beyond the mowing and the birdseed, there is a wetland.
Here we found two kinds of Alder
A confused rose leafing out with rosehips
A tipped nest watched over by a chickadee.
Two gates on Franklin Road ended our hike in the corridor; but not our exploration of this unexpected place of natural interest and the changes that took place here- Norma Manning
Further Reading:
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