Trail / No Trail or Too Much Information

Some trails are easy to follow like the road that goes into the Vernon town forest or the Black Gum Swamp's Red and White trails. Other trails however can land you in the middle of nowhere without clear blazes, ducks, cairns, or cell service and without a beaten path to follow.

Two blazes - trail head
One vertical blaze - keep going straight
Two blazes with the right higher up- right turn
Two blazes with the left higher up - left turn
Three blazes- Spur to a different trail and sometimes three lets the hiker know of a change in the trail

Easy peasy lemon squeezy right?

Ducks are three stacked stones marking trails in the high country where there aren't trees to blaze Cairns are a pile of stones that are around three feet high.

Simple enough right?

Oh and remember that blazes and (hopefully) ducks are painted in the color of the trail you are on. Did I mention that trails are typically assigned names and colors? So if you happen upon two yellow blazes with a third blue you have just found where the blue trail meets the yellow.

But even with all of this clear trail information, sometimes a fad comes into play like on Putney Mountain where fun loving visitors stack and balance stones everywhere and I mean everywhere! Then there are the trees with old blazes, new blazes, tin and wooden diamonds and blazed trees that have fallen to the ground. More exciting is when there is a boundary in the middle of the wilderness (why?) and the blazes are actually survey markers and not trail markers at all. My favorite challenge however is the prankster who rotates an occasional arrow or decides to add their own cryptic message to the fray.

In any event, Wayne, the dogs and I made it out of Roaring Brook Wildlife Refuge albeit later than we had planned, some very colorful words "spoken" and with a few more scrapes than expected. - Norma Manning

Wayne checks his map in a recently logged area of Roaring Brook Wildlife Refuge

Four blazes three red then a yellow and red on the right just behind a survey stake

Orange, red, yellow, blue and white. Good thing we brought a map

Hints of a Story

My professor taught me that when you are stumped by tree identification look for surrounding clues. Sometimes he meant stand back and take a good look at the form of the tree, sometimes a bigger look at where the tree is and who it's neighbors are; but sometimes he meant look at the ground and see what has been shed by the tree or what soils the tree's feet are in.

That life lesson as it turns out was much broader than my what youthful inexperience was prepared to take root in. Good soil, good location, good fortune meant a textbook tree easily identified by a student in search of four credits.  But seemingly perfect specimens are rare, sometimes cut down for Christmas trees and not a complete picture of the forest.  What becomes of the trees that must grow and survive in adverse conditions? What shape will it take on as it grows?  These are the trees that aren't as easily identified by casual observation, those are the ones where we must either step back from or move in closer to find their clues.

It's the hints of a story, the signs of the struggle, the triumph of resilience that inspire me in the woods; and yes sometimes it is the slumber of old giants tucked in by green moss, leaf litter and stepped on by small children's feet that reminds me to search for a life well lived and not a textbook perfect life. - Norma Manning

Whatever this birch was growing in or around has since been washed away.

Eastern Hemlock growing on a rock

Take a closer look 

Jane Goodall by Lauren Leclaire

Jane Goodall was bon of April 3, 1934. Jane had a sister born on the same day as her.  When Jane a little more than a year old her dad gave her a chimpanzee.  This began her love of the outdoors and animals.  Jane always dreamt about going to Africa one day.  After she graduated high school she worked as a waitress and saved her money to go to Africa.  Jane went to Africa like she always wanted to and she got a job so she could stay in the country.

Jane studies chimps to learn if they were like people.  She married a Dutch Nobleman and had three kids.  The hardship Jane faced, the chimps destroyed her place.  But eventually she became friends with the chimps she studied.

Jane won at least 2 awards and she has written a lot about chimps.  Jane is a great woman because she is considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimps.

- Lauren Leclaire a third grader at Vernon Elementary School, recently presented this essay and her puppet to her teachers and peers at VES.

Lauren Leclaire with her Jane Goodall puppet

Wildlife Finally Makes an Appearance

The short cold days of winter here in Vernon have made it challenging for a novice weekend enthusiast like myself to spy wildlife out and about. Except for a plethora birds and squirrels at the feeders, the bunny that lives under my brush pile, and the occasional skunk, I have had to be content with finding signs of animals that I had somehow managed to miss. Deer and racoon tracks, felled trees, woodpecker holes and a sizable bone found by a student at recess had been until today the closest that I had come to seeing a wild animal.

This afternoon I took the dogs to the Vernon Rec. where I finally found wildlife that seemingly had been waiting for warmer weather and the arrival of Vernon's children. - Norma Manning

A sure sign of climate change, the Southern Five Fingered Giraffe dons a scarf at Vernon Rec.

A rare glimpse of The Giant Green Rock Newt which is better camouflaged in summer months

Not seen since 2009, the Purple Dinosaur is considered among the rarest reptiles found in VT

I Saw It First

One of my earliest memories as a child was to be the first kid in the car to proclaim, "I saw it first!" No matter if we were coming from Georgia, Kansas or as close as Burlington's North End, the first of us to spy the waters of Lake Champlain on our way to my grandparent's house in South Hero would holler out those words.  I continued to play that game by myself in college, as a mother with my own children when my parents lived there and even today with Wayne at what is now my sister's home.

It's funny how a body of water can mean different things to different people. Wayne, who was born and raised in Bellows Falls, remembers the CT River as the place that he went fishing but would never dare eat the fish. His memories of the polluted river have persisted and even now while watching Vernon families swim below the dam, Wayne refuses to swim or fish in the CT.

I stopped at the town hall recently to ask Mr Arsenault, how many miles of Vernon are borderd by the CT, in typical Tim fashion he anserwerd, "all of them." Unlike some of the historically commercial and industrial areas of the valley, Vernon has never turned it's back to the river. Brattleboro built the canyon that is Main street with its tall buildings between its residents and the river; but when the Europeans arrived in Vernon, they took advantage of the rich soils deposited here by the water to farm and farms remain here still.

Over the decades, progress did manage to catch up with Vernon, a hydroelectric dam was constructed, and in 1972 the now closed Vermont Yankee came online using the CT as its source for cooling water. With progress came a fence that separated resident from river.  Like many others, it was VY and the river that brought us to Vernon. With jobs came housing, pavement and other development that devided up the land and met the needs of the people. 

At our Town Meeting last night it was clear that Vernon continues to grapple with moving forward post Vermont Yankee. We are at a crossroads trying to strike a balance between meeting our civic obligations  and retaining Vernon's rural heritage. What becomes of the parcel between Governor Hunt rd and the river will be determined over the next decade.  

Last night the town voted to set aside money for legal consultation for future industrial development and we voted to set aside additional funds for Farmland Conservation. My hope is that in genarations to come, families in Vernon will look to the river - I saw it first! -Norma Manning

The Industrious Beaver on Pond Rd

Just beyond where the utility company flat cut saplings to the ground an industrious beaver appears to have shown the workers with chain saws how the locals get things done. - Norma Manning

A rotted trunk in the foreground versus three cut down by a beaver. 

Exposing the Phloem 

Beavers are herbivores whose diet consists of 53% woody materials.

Beavers will leave the wind to finish felling their trees.

A beaver uses it's growing teeth (incisors) to cut down trees and strip bark.  

Lily Pond Signs of Spring

The end of February brought with it warmer days, the return of the morning chorus, Canada geese and the ice at Lily pond showing signs of giving way to spring. - Norma Manning