Room For Change

Traditions are tricky business. Like the mince pie with only one slice eaten before the guests take Chinese food containers and gallon bags of turkey home; some traditions are passed down from generation to generation, some materialize out of necessity and some result from inclusion. This is why Wayne carves the bird with his grandfather's carving set and why our family began serving birthday cake for desert on Thanksgiving (Happy Birthday Emily Tuite). I can only wonder if eating pie over Zoom with our kids on a Thursday afternoon in November of 2020 will become another tradition. I can only hope that in person pie will make a return for 2021.

Wayne and I's first Christmas together happened in Winter Park, Florida (the irony!). We managed to find a live tree that we could sort of afford on Christmas Eve day. We decorated the tiny Charlie Brown tree in shorts and t-shirts, with ornaments that my mother and mother in law had mailed to us from VT. We still hang those decorations (beside Barbara Moseley's from the Vernon Historians) on our tree 35 years later. Though our parents have long since transitioned to artificial trees and my mom now lives in FL while we are in VT,  Wayne and I have maintained our childhood tradition of  a live tree. 

Oh sure there are other wonderful traditions like my mother in-law's sticky buns, her saving wrappings for the next year and my mother's Christmas Tourtiere. My mother passed down to me a piece of green cloth that she used to cover her coffee table during the family party. I did the same with my own children reveling in the festive addition. It wasn't too many years ago when I was unpacking that cherished cloth that I realized that it is in fact from a tablecloth that mom had salvaged by cutting it down. I still deeply miss Wayne's grandmother Thelma and try to say at least once during the holidays one of her endearing sentiments, "Everything is so good, God Bless!" Holding onto things while making room for new, is a balance that anyone who has ever received a child's crafted ornament on Christmas Day understands. 

I have vivid memories of watching Wayne and our daughter Kayden from our living room window taking a tree out of Wayne's truck while I was holding our newborn Helen. From then on, we never again set out to get a tree prior to December 7th. As our family grew, so too did the size of our tree, with some leaving scrape marks on our ceiling and chips in the floor where Wayne was forced to cut down the trunks. When all of the kids could walk on their own, we began cutting our own trees at various farms. Let me tell you about the challenges of getting a consensus of six on the perfect tree! When Ethan grew to six foot three, he became our measuring stick for tree height and the one who helped Wayne hoist the tree onto the car roof. 

One year, our youngest Abigail positively fell in love with a tiny Charlie Brown tree. Though she was fervently clinging to her tree, I thoughtlessly vetoed her choice. It seems that I had at that moment forgotten about my own Charlie Brown tree and crushed her holiday spirit. Perhaps this has something to do with her tradition of hanging a popsicle stick framed picture of Paul Rudd at eye level on the front of our tree each year.

With no kids home for Thanksgiving and Helen being in ME for her birthday, Wayne and I will be trying something both old and new this weekend. Instead of trudging through rows of perfectly manicured award winning Christmas trees at a VT  farm, we have decided to go in search of a $5.00 tree in the Green Mountain National Forest. I'm pretty excited to get lost (really lost) on a cold November day while hunting down the perfect VT native Charlie Brown tree! I have decided however, that even if the kids are unable to join us for in person Christmas, Paul Rudd will be there and tiny owls with any luck will not. -Norma Manning

Post note: 

When our parents transitioned into our guests and until recently, my sister's family each year, hosted us for Easter and we them at Thanksgiving. This arrangement was made so that Claire and I could both enjoy one holiday each without having to panic clean. Additionally, Wayne's sister Marsha, offered that if we were willing to drive to BF on Christmas, she was willing to host. A mention to my brothers Charles & Doug and their families, for they were also willing to travel (after they got their deer). A shout out to my brother Paul,  a Physicians Assistant who works all of the holidays and his wife Darleen who has always put up with that.  

I have over the years, been deeply blessed and grateful for our extended family's generosity. Though 2020 has disrupted our lives, it cannot disrupt my love for you. Wayne, Janice, Annette, we are who we are because of you. You carry on through the lessons you have taught us. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas to all.

Resources to help identify evergreens

Trees of Vermont

Aren't They All Just Pines?

Spruce Up Your ID Skills

Some of the Vermont native conifers I have come across here in Vernon. A frost covered Eastern Hemlock.

Eastern White Pine covered in frost. White Pines have five needles.

Update: A reader corrected me on this identification writing that this is not a Juniper, but instead an Atlantic White Cedar! So it seems that I will have to learn to call the trees in my front yard the cedars instead of the junipers. This also means that I am still on the hunt for a Juniper in town. 

White Cedar / Arborvitae  has been cultivated to fit the urban landscape. In it's original form, the Northern White Cedar is typically 40 to 50 feet tall with some reaching 125 feet tall. 

Though native to VT Red Pine wasn't on my radar until I found this grove planted in Vernon. 

Spruce are difficult for me to tell apart. Though my father in law says that this spruce belongs in the mountains and not in the lowlands, I believe, based on its menthol scent, this is a Black Spruce. This particular tree is located in my own yard.

While I know that they are here and I have most likely walked right past them, I don't yet have photographs of White Spruce, Red Spruce, Fir or Tamarac. I am sure it won't be long before I add them here. 

Shoe Trees part two: Last Tree Standing

I was around the age of 14 when I first experienced the Black Hills of South Dakota on our way to a new station in Colorado Springs. My interests at that time didn't extend to the Lakota people or to the Black Hills. We were there to see Mount Rushmore and as time permitted the Badlands. The irony of this escaped me until I visited again while driving coast to coast at the age of 51. It was on this second visit that Wayne, Abby and I (at my daughters insistence) made a point of including the Crazy Horse monument on our itinerary.

But let's back this up just a smidgeon. As I would later surmise, the Black Hills were named in similar fashion to the way other ranges in North America were. The Rocky Mountains have a tree line at 11,000 feet leaving peaks of exposed rock.  The Green mountains are covered with green trees, plants and shrubs and the Black Hills were covered with Black Spruce. I say "were" because the area that we traveled through on that second visit had been mostly cleared of trees.

It was at the Crazy Horse Monument that I approached an employee and asked him why the hills had been cleared of trees.  His  answer was that it was in an effort to save the Black Spruce from Black Hills Spruce Diseases. Black Hills Spruce Diseases are three kinds of fungal infections that were spreading from tree to tree through the hills at a rapid pace. The decision had been made to remove all but one healthy tree per acre.

Several springs ago here in Vernon, we lost our entire roadside row of mature spruce. Some suggested that it had to do with road salt applications. It was when I noticed numerous balding spruce in my neighborhood and on Pond Rd that I asked our local forester what was happening. He speculated that it was a fungal disease and that we should remove dead trees, prune lower branches and carefully dispose of tree litter. When my trees came down a neighbor expressed sadness because they were some of the only mature trees in the development. I agreed that the loss of a mature tree is a loss to the community; but removing some to save the others was a sacrifice well worth the cost.

Of course here in Vermont, there were and are other reasons for removing trees besides firewood and disease. Historically, Vermont's rocky soil, rolling hills and swift rivers made it ideal for the sheep and wool industry. By the middle of the 1800s, seventy-five percent of Vermont's forests had been cleared. Today while hiking through our forests its common to find rock walls created by clearing land for pasture. You might also come upon Wolf Trees that for whatever reason were spared the ax and saw, escaped illness and await the day when they too will be brought down. - Norma Manning

Wayne stands next to a Wolf Tree on the Red and White trail in Vernon