Today's Vermont: Tough Plants and Loud Birds

The latest spring snow I’ve experienced in Vermont fell at sunrise a few years ago on May 31st, the final day of turkey hunting season. 

I was sitting in silence on the edge of a meadow in the Wolcott hills alongside my dear friend, Dave, bundled in long underwear and full camo with a thermos of hot coffee, listening to the lusty dawn chorus of birdsong. Suddenly, snowflakes began drifting down and accumulating on our shoulders and knees. 

Dave, who is meticulous in everything he does, made a series of yelps with his turkey call, and was immediately answered by a loud gobble that sounded almost metallic in its urgency. We continued to sit in silence in the falling snow until the rounded fan of the turkey’s tail feathers came into view, wobbling ever closer, the scene building like a slow and portentous climax of Kabuki theater. 

Dave lifted his shotgun to his shoulder. The turkey’s fan opened and closed. Hens approached us first, clucking softly, and then the gobbler himself, seeming to float chest-first above the tufts of meadow grass, red in the neck, blue in the face, flushed almost white hot with spring fever. 

Dave held still for several minutes without trembling, then fired. The turkey dropped and thrashed. We humans stood and stretched our stiff limbs, removed our face coverings, and walked out into the sunshine of the open field. 

The snow was gone.

May is a manic month in Vermont. The days are long. The birds are loud. The sun is high. 

Everything is growing, striving, hustling to establish territory, and gather energy as the sun shines. Tough little plants like fiddleheads, knotweed, and garlic mustard thrust skyward from the riverbanks. There is a joyful sense of urgency in the air, and the overwhelming feeling of SO much work to be done. 

Sound familiar? 

The frenetic intensity of work in service to a societal imperative of ceaseless productivity has been a defining feature of our culture for as long as I can remember. Now, however, the whirring gears of the economy are finally slowing down. Industrial supply chains designed to deliver the right product at just the right time to meet demand are unable to cope, and innumerable systems predicated on the gospel of maximum efficiency and endless economic growth are collapsing. 

There is still that familiar and persistent feeling of anxiety in the air, the impulse to be productive, and the fear of falling behind, but there is also a growing awareness of a new paradigm being born.

Every May, I try to resist the pressures of productivity long enough to sit in silence in hardwood forests at dawn, to wade through cold Vermont rivers on sunny days, and to set off on long bike rides without a particular destination in mind. This spring, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it feels more important than ever to step off the hamster wheel of productivity from time to time, not just as a counterbalance to societal pressures, but as a means of survival. 

Like many Vermonters, I’ve been listening to the press conferences that Governor Phil Scott and his administration are holding three times a week to inform the public about the State’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Recently, the Governor has taken to using the phrase “Restart Vermont” to refer to the measured and deliberate resumption of economic activity. Perhaps it’s not surprising to hear this phrase from a politician whose top priority initiative has always been to grow the economy, but I can’t help but object to the implication that Vermont ever stopped in the first place. 

Vermont is a black bear rummaging through a birch log. Vermont is 10,000 tiny waterfalls. Vermont is the reddish tint of maple flowers on a distant mountainside. Vermont is trillions upon trillions of microorganisms living in millions of tons of painstakingly accumulated topsoil. Vermont is the wind blowing over Camel’s Hump. Vermont is a group of neighbors gathered in lawn chairs six feet apart, catching up and sharing jokes on a Friday evening. 

Let’s not succumb to the belief that Vermont and its economy are one and the same, or conflate the wellbeing of Vermonters with the size of our state GDP. 

One Vermont institution that has never confused economic growth with the pursuit of happiness is Bread & Puppet, a non-profit theater company based in Glover. Bread & Puppet is the first destination on Carolinne Griffin’s expertly curated summertime list of 14 Things To Do in the Northeast Kingdom, many of which (like #14, Do Nothing) are still totally possible in the time of COVID-19.

Although it’s too early to know if there will be live theater performances in Glover this summer, the iconic Bread & Puppet artwork inspires in homes and gardens throughout the state. There’s great power in the simplicity of the art, like the word SING printed above the rough-hewn image of a dandelion, or the word YES above the bold masonite cutout of a rose. I especially admire the subversive and liberating spirit expressed in the Cheap Art Manifesto. If you could use a bit of brightness and beauty on your kitchen wall, you can buy (cheap!) art in the online Bread and Puppet shop. 

While out on a springtime ramble the other day I came upon a patch of wild ramps. My first impulse was to harvest a few leaves to cook up with my breakfast eggs the next morning, and my second impulse was to whip out my phone. Posed in the middle of the ramp patch, I took a selfie. Then I adjusted my hair, and took another. Later, I posted the photo on Instagram with a sanctimonious caption about going easy when harvesting ramps and other wild edibles to protect the plants for future generations.

The likes and comments rolled in, triggering pleasant bursts of dopamine, and I was struck by one comment from Buzz Ferver of Perfect Circle Farm. “Ramps are very easy to propagate from seed,” he wrote. “They are very tough.” 

Interesting! I’d always thought of ramps as somewhat delicate, difficult to grow, and susceptible to over harvesting. But it makes sense that they’re tough - after all, they return in April, year after year. And while it’s certainly possible to decimate a patch of ramps by digging up all the bulbs, perhaps that says more about the greed of humans than the toughness of the plants themselves. 

So although I’ll continue to harvest ramps with care, I find comfort in the toughness of plants. I love the idea of sunchokes taking over my lawn, of burdock hitching rides on my sweater, and of thick stands of knotweed thriving on sandy riverbanks to the consternation of conservationists armed with herbicides. The pandemic has revealed that some things we thought were strong and permanent are actually fragile, and some things we thought were fragile are actually quite strong. 

No doubt the most vulnerable thing in that ramp patch was my ego, or my iPhone.  

What’s the latest spring snow you’ve experienced in Vermont? Is it true that snow once fell on the 4th of July parade in Newport? What plants have you spotted in the woods and along the roadsides? Want to highlight acts of kindness in the time of COVID-19? Join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #todaysvermont, and thanks, as always, for reading.

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