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. 

Bring Your Story to the Woods

In my mind the meaning of a poem is only in part what the author set out to say.  The poem's meaning is in its entirety, only revealed through the reader's personal experiences. Take this picture of a tree Wayne and I came across while hiking in Roaring Brook wildlife management area. I stopped the mission in its tracks to evaluate exactly what I was seeing. Wayne on the other hand? Well, let's just say that Wayne is a very patient person with these things.

I first noted the big piece of flat rock to the left of the tree jutting up out of the ground and demanding my closer inspection. "It looks like an old gravestone don't you think?" I observed and then moved in closer to take the picture. I suppose that this was my first response to the scene because I love wandering around in old cemeteries reading epitaphs, admiring craftsmanship and wondering about life stories. Without words carved into them, the flat rock seemed fixed, dark and cold but still something about it suggested that it had a story to tell about the past.

On second glance, I encountered something less peaceful than the first. I witnessed the signs of a struggle with many rocks displaced and forced aside by the Hemlock tree that was growing tall in spite of their weighted complaints. No, this was not a place of final rest; but rather a testament to active, persistent growth over time. "Move aside!" the tree seemed to be saying, "I have a part to tell in this story and it's not over yet."

 Remnants of the Hemlock's trials persist at the tree's base; the rock's objections to the tree's presence made clear.  The root that pushed under and upheaved the rock that first caught my attention now terminates above the ground and I am sure that it will someday give way to the rock. This is not however a picture of a scarred, gnarled and stunted tree, this is a story of endurance and just one of many of your stories waiting for you in the woods. -Norma Manning

This Eastern Hemlock pushed rock aside as it grew, but some roots changed their direction.

Shoe Trees part three: Who or what decides?

Vernon is a working landscape. We have multiple generational dairy farms as well as backyard farms, seasonal operations such as sugaring, stone quarries, railroad, hydroelectric dam, a mulch company,  logging, a large neighboring lumber industry and the growing presence of eco tourism. With each of these industries, decisions have been made as to how best utilize our resources.

 I'm sure that over the four hundred years at Black Gum Swamps, more than a few close calls were had in the name of progress, commodity, home heating as well natural causes such as fire, disease and changing environment.

A short hike up Black Gum Swamps' red trail reveals American Chestnut rings where mature trees once graced the swamp's landscape. Did these valuable trees fall victim to the blight, age or logging? Is it possible with careful management to restore the stand?

Last Autumn I was with a group of naturalists touring the swamps when the leader requested that no participant who had been in contact with chestnuts previously, approach the rings for fear of transferring the blight. This group seemed more excited about the rings than the Black Gums Vernon is so famous for.

Though the pictures of trees I take today may seemingly lack the romance of others found in or once found in Vernon, I can't help but wonder if our maples, ash and hemlocks without purposeful intervention, will someday go the way of the American Chestnut and American Elm.  With the Asian Long- horned Beetle, Emerald Ash Borer, Woolly Adelgid, land use pressures and climate change, one thing is certain, the foresight of our community members to conserve Black Gum Swamps and our town forest was wise, but will it be enough?

Wouldn't that be a shame if in twenty years shoes hung from our Sugar Maples instead of taps? - Norma Manning

Sapline running to a collection barrel on Huckle Hill