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I write this with mixed feelings of relief, and dread. Twenty years ago, if you talked to me about global warming, and climate change, back around the turn of the millennium, you’d find that I wasn’t too concerned. Heck, I lived in Vermont, and the winters were long, cold, frosty and snowy. What would be wrong with a longer growing season, and a shorter winter? An earlier spring would certainly be a welcome thing, no?
I turned 40 in January 2000. My college years seemed like they were a long time ago, even back then. I was working as a rural postmaster, in the back of a General Store in a small Vermont village. I was pretty much a one-man show, doing everything from waiting on customers to doing the bookkeeping for the US Postal Service, headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was sort of a unique situation, in that, though it was a rural village scene, there was a great variety of folks that lived there. Some had been raised in the town, and some had family history had gone back many, many generations, even as far as the first european settlements here, in the 1760’s. Some folks even had Abenaki, first nation roots. Other people I served were relative new-comers, many connected with Dartmouth College and the medical center, commuting about 35 miles a day. In addition, from about Memorial Day to Labor Day, there were many “summer folks” and “camp people” who inundated the area due to the presence of Lake Fairlee, located less than a mile from the Post Office. Many of these folks came from all over the country, and foreign countries as well. Some of them had grown up going to the camps on Lake Fairlee back in the 1940’s, and loved it so much, they bought a summer place and returned every year for the glorious summer weather and cool lake waters. As you can imagine, the college has had a large impact on the area, providing jobs, and attracting intelligent, interesting people from all over the world. As postmaster, I interacted with all of them, and, as a hopelessly curious individual, with a little free time on my hands, I had seemingly endless conversations with many of the folks, from all walks of life, about many subjects, from history of the area, to current events, and much more. I learned a lot from these kind folks, and treasured my time there. To many people, my job seemed boring: “He’s stuck in that little room with a scale, rate charts, a file cabinet, sorting table, and a phone.” But to me, it was my own little window on a very real, vibrant village, and the world beyond. The winters were quiet and cold. All the summer folks had gone away, and many of the year-round residents worked and commuted during the day. During these times, I had plenty of time to chat with the retired, year-round residents. Eventually, politics came into the picture, and as an inquisitve individual, I listened to the various viewpoints, and learned from them, in an effort to form my own views. Two individuals stood out. The first man, we’ll call him Richard, or Rich, was a retired bank examiner, who had worked for a large insurance company. He was very intelligent and gregarious, and had grown up just down the road in another rural Vermont village. Rich had a grandfather who had run a general store, and who also had been a postmaster, so he knew very well, first-hand, what it was like there back in the mid twentieth century, and prior. I enjoyed hearing about life growing up there in the old days. The other fellow, Ed,was a World War II veteran, and I’m really not sure where he grew up, or how he was connected to the area, but he was a retired writer. Ed, like Rich lived with his wife a few miles up the road and came in daily for his po box mail. Rich and Ed would both come in, almost daily, and we might have a little chat across the p.o. service window. I got to know them, and enjoyed their company. A great ice-breaker for conversation was the weather. Like food, and the need to eat, weather was something that affected all of us, and often, the subject would lead to other matters of discussion, like, what the weather was like around there in the old days. It seemed that winters had been colder, longer, and snowier. My own, subjective experience of the weather in this geographic location began in February 1984, when I traveled north for a job interview in Lyme NH, at a small, up and coming digital mapping company. I remember distinctly a February morning when I parked my 1974 Plymouth Valiant on West Wheelock Street. I began a short walk to one of the college buildings, where I was to find the office of housing, which supplied a list of local housing possibilities. For some reason, I wasn’t considering how deep the snow was, and I inadvertently stepped into a thigh-deep snow bank, suddenly impressed with how much beautiful, dry, white fluffy snow I had almost got stuck in. Another step or two, and I was on the sidewalk, brushing snow off of my pant legs. I thought to myself, “Wow! Beautiful, white fluffy snow! Not slush!” And the weather was gorgeous: bright sunshine, clear blue sky, and the temperature was below freezing. I truly felt like I was moving to a place that I would love. I had grown up in Connecticut, and I’d had lots of experience with snow. As a child growing up, my birthdays in January, often included sledding parties. However, by this point in time, the mid nineteen-eighties, I was getting tired of the brownish slush of the Connecticut February scene, and was excited for crisp, cold nights and days, with lots of fresh, white snow. Of course, cold weather and snow is not for everyone, which is actually a good thing, or there would be a lot more people moving to the north country, and consequently, fewer forests and fields here, like in my hometown. By the time I graduated UConn, I had grown to dislike the crowds, wide paved roads and traffic lights, shopping malls, and suburban developments of the area of Connecticut where I had grown up, since 1960. As a part-time worker in the Wallingford post office, during the summers and Holiday periods from 1978-1983, while in college at UConn, I had seen a constant barrage of heavy equipment tearing down forests and fields for sewer lines, concrete, pavement, cul-de sacs, cookie-cutter houses and McMansions, and that had left a bad taste in my mouth. To me, it seemed like un-checked development, but people had to live somewhere, and be near to their jobs. Having moved to the north country, just after college in ‘84, I was delighted to be escaping all that development for a place where there was employment, interesting people, plenty of services, and most of all, open space, including hills and forested mountains, and the phenomenal Appalachian Trail. No one said it was going to be easy, or inexpensive to live here, but it was obvious there were folks who had been doing it, and were very happy. The air was fresh as can be, especially compared to from where I had come. In addition to the mountains, forests and streams, there were the lovely farmers’ fields along the Connecticut River, and the river itself, which was at the heart of the valley, clear and exciting, much narrower than down country. I looked forward to exploring the area, and learning all I could about it. But back to the general store post office, of the 1990’s and 2000’s. As I had gotten to know Rich and Ed, we talked about the weather and history, and eventually, the subject of global warming came up, as it had been a somewhat recent topic of the day. Rich and Ed were skeptics. “The weather has always been changing”, they would say. “It’s not man-made, and we really don’t have to worry about it, especially in Vermont, where the winters are too long and cold anyway!”. Hmmm. This made me think. In college, I had taken lots of geography courses. One course in particular that I enjoyed was called “Human Modifications of the Earth’s Environment”. I learned how we, as species had been, slowly at first, changing things. I also took courses in Urban Geography, and mapping courses in Air Photo Interpretaion and Satellite Imagery. I saw for myself, from the remote imagery, the difference in patterns on the earth’s surface as time evolved, and development expanded. Of course, there’s nothing like one’s own experiences, over the course of decades, to see, and hopefully understand what’s been happening all around us, at what used to be a slower pace. Fast forward to 2021. I’ve been retired for five years, and I have not taken another job. My wife advised me to do what interests me. What really interests me is geography and history, and how they relate to what is going on right now. Things are changing, and changing faster than ever. As I write this, I am recovering from an illness known as “babesiosis”. I got it from a very small, “black-legged tick”, or “deer tick”, scientific name: “Ixodes scapularis”. This illness has only been seen in our geographic region for about a year. Before that, folks who picked it up got it when they were on vacation, or visiting parts farther south. I never encountered ticks while growing up in Connecticut in the 60’s and 70’s. Back then we would lie on the grass, or roll around on the grass without a care in the world. In fact, the first time I'd ever even heard about a tick, I was in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, in the summer of 1984. My girlfriend found one attached to her, and we had to drive all around to find something to take it off with. She said she needed a tweezers to pull it off, or vaseline to suffocate it. She was a Dartmouth grad, in environmental studies, and she knew something about them, while it was all new to me. Somehow we got it off of her, and then we went back to New Hampshire, and I was glad that those things didn’t live where we lived. But that was then. It was in the early 2000’s when I found the first one on me, dug in, and engorged. I had been cutting some weeds and cattails near the inlet of our pond, and didn’t realize the tick was crawling on me. In my case, I found it attached to my back while in the shower, and I just grapped the part that was outside, puffed up with my blood, and pulled what I could off of me. Of course, the head stayed in, and the site became red and took a week or two to heal. But there was no illness involved. It was easy to find, because it was big enough that I noticed it while showering. Over the next decade and a half or so, my wife and I, started finding ticks on our pets and on ourselves, more frequently, and we learned the proper way to remove them. Better than tweezers, we now use a small plastic “spoon” with a triangular shaped cut in it, which we use to spin the tick, and it usually “unscrews” right out, completely. They are gross. We learned to keep our pets well brushed, and check them at least daily. We’ve pulled countless ticks off of them, and ourselves. In the last couple years I started following the recommendations I’ve seen. I tuck my pant legs into my socks, so they can’t climb up my legs. I started using “Off” with Deet, to spray may shoes, clothes, and hat, in hopes of repelling them with the poison. When I come in from the grass or the woods, I throw my outer layers into the clothes dryer to kill any potential ticks, and I take a shower, being careful to check my body over for ticks, and hoping if there are any, that they havent’ dug in, and that they’ll go down the drain. With these new processes, I’ve done pretty well. I spend a lot of time outside, and I do my own landscaping, so I need to be cautious. This is especially true when trimming near the edges, where the mowed area meets the wild world of tall grasses, milkweeds, goldenrod, and borders of the pond. In 2020, I don’t think I found one tick on me, so I figured I was doing well. This year, 2021, I slacked a little. I still tucked my pant legs into my socks, put my clothes in the dryer, and took a shower. But I forgot the Deet. And, worse, once in a while, if I wasn’t too dirty or sweaty, and maybe tired, I’d postpone my shower to the next day. Bad idea. This past summer, near our northern property line border, I left an area unmowed for the summer. There’s a lot of sun out there, and the milkweeds love to grow. This year the Monarch Butterflies were plentiful, and glorious. I love watching them flutter around after they hatch, and I love to see them when they are in the caterpillar stage. They are colorful and beautiful. Also, the deer like to bed down there at night, leaving the tall grass matted down. We have Pine trees and Alders at that northern border that moved in when the field was broken up for two more houses, about 25 years ago, and I left that area to grow wild. Years ago the whole field had been hayed regularly, but since the field was split up, it just gets cut, and the cuttings are not used for hay. It’s a bit wet out there too, and I appreciate the border that has been made by the pines and alders. They act as a wind break from the strong north and northwesterly winds that blow here, especially during winter storms. We are on a 2 acre parcel, in the lower, southern part of the field. The whole field is about 20 acres, with a very wet, wild, wooded part at the far northern end, where the groundwater flow changes direction. The deer love this field, and years ago we saw a moose meander across. We also saw a bear come through one spring, but it’s been over twenty years since we’ve seen the big beautiful mammals. Deer still come through often, though, and we see their prints in the road and on our driveway and in the snow almost daily. The deer also like to chew on our hostas, coming right up to the front porch at times for a tasty treat. The deer and moose are currently being barraged by ticks. Around the end of September, I decided to mow up there in an effort to keep the area clear of trees. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE trees! They are like the other half of our lungs, providing oxygen for us, while we provide carbon dioxide for them. What a great relationship! I could not live anywhere where people outnumber trees. And, remember, we only see half of a tree, as the roots spread out, and go deep, mingling with other trees’ roots, the soil, and especially the mycelium, the internet of the plant world. So I mowed with my little John Deere lawn tractor. It’s a good workout for the mower, as it’s a lot of cutting when the grass is over two feet tall, and filled with tall and short grasses and plants and many small quaking aspen, or “popple" trees. Try mowing a big patch of lawn that has gone wild all spring and summer, and see what happens. In this case, I generated a ton of “clippings”, which I wanted to clean up a bit so as not to create dead zones where the new grass has a hard time coming up. The next day, I got out a rake, and started raking the clippings onto a large tarp. I hauled the clippings over a couple banks that have been eroding, thinking that they would break down over the winter, and help to build up the soil. I’d seen old timers do that, and it made sense to me. Around September 22nd, I noticed a bulge in my right armpit, when showering. It wasn’t huge, and I thought it was strange. After a couple days it seemed to get bigger, and I had my wife take a look. She saw it too, and I started doing some research. It could be the result of an ingrown hair. Within a couple days, my wife noticed a faint red ring around the bulge, which had gotten bigger each day. There was no obvious bite mark. I called my doctor’s office and they said I should come in. They gave me an antibiotic, and after a week the bulge went down, the red ring went away, and I didn’t have any other symptoms. Another week or 10 days went by though, and I started noticing myself dragging. I was tired, but I wasn’t getting over that, and headaches were developing, followed by fever, especially at night. After a few days of this I thought I might have caught Covid. I’d had my shot, and my booster in May, but I figured I’d better get it checked out. I went back to my doctor’s office, and took two covid tests, both came back negative. My symptoms, which included fatigue, fever, chills, headache and muscle aches were consistent with a possible tick-borne illness, so I had a complete blood count test, and a test for tick-borne diseases. They also put me on doxycyline, which was pretty rough on my stomach. Four days later, I was still pretty sick, with the added problem of stomach cramps, and lack of appetite. Fortunately, at that point, my blood work came back and it was determined that I was suffering from Babesiosis, another tick-borne disease. Babesiosis wasn’t even seen in our geographic region until about 12 months ago, when the disease, along with the ticks that carry them, had migrated northward with the increasingly warmer temperatures of our summers, and lengthened growing season. It’s funny, that when I moved here back in 1984, I was really happy about long winters, and the fact that the cold and freezing temperatures kept certain species away. Back then, I was thinking more about things like alligators, and lizards, creatures like that. But also, what the cold used to do for us, was to keep things away, like ticks, and insects that carry disease too, but couldn’t survive in our area (back then). I’m only writing this because I care about folks, and until I had this happen to me, it was just something I had read about. Those deer ticks are really, really small and hard to detect when they are on your body. Please be careful out there, it really is a new reality, and it’s constantly changing. I used to think that any climate change was simply part of a natural process, and yes, partly that is true. It’s just that we humans are also a part of this natural process, and I believe we have unwittingly accelerated things greatly in the last two hundred years. It’s time to work together to find solutions. It won’t be easy. Many of us will have to lessen our expectations in terms of what we can, and should do. We just might not be able to live the lifestyles we had become accustomed to, in order to help out with the big picture, which is coming into clearer focus. But hopefully, we can survive, and thrive, and enjoy our lives and our families, like people have done for thousands of years.
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AuthorI'm Bob Totz, retired VT postmaster, and historical geographer ARCHIVES:
October 2021
EXPANDED ARCHIVES: AUGUST 2021 1858 Johnson Map of North America MAY 2021 1795 - "Road Over the Mountain" - Part Two Historic Toll House For Sale 1795 - "Road Over the Mountain" Part One OCTOBER 2020 Finding That Special Peaceful Place AUGUST 2020 Kayaking on the Pompy JULY 2020 Pt. 2: What the Heck Are These Things? JUNE 2020 Bob's Bio... What the Heck Are These Things? Pt. 1 MAY 2020 Stone Walls and Spirits The View APRIL 2020 Sunny Brook Farm Relics: Pt 2. Sunny Brook Farm Relics: Pt 1. MARCH 2020 Signs of Norwich Pt. 2 COVID-19 Tracking Map Centertown and Valleyquest Signs of Norwich Pt. 1 "Imperfect Union" - Book Review Historic Centertown FEBRUARY 2020 King's Hwy Pt. 2 WRJ Museum at Post Mills Airport Chatauguay Vermont The Independent Farmer poem Traveling Along the King's Highway - Lebanon NH JANUARY 2020 Finding Parkhurst Cemetery In Search of Parkhurst Cemetery Affordable Housing The Old Stone Grill Two Rivers Trail-Kmart License and Registration, Please! Prohibition, Murder and Dr. Seuss Peace, Paris, & P.O. DECEMBER 2019 BLOGGER'S LINKS Welcome to Old Roads Love-Quail Hollow fun Dartmouth Cemetery SEPTEMBER 2019 E. Thetford Cemetery JUNE 2019
Taps: Meetinghouse Cemetery 4-Corners Borders Quest Old Iron Gate Stumbling Upon History Sunrise Walk MAY 2019 4 Corners Cemetery Strafford's Abandoned Foundations Art in Old Stonework APRIL 2019 Strafford Tpke Pt 2 Strafford Tpke Pt 1 White River Valley FEBRUARY 2019 Learning from Historic Maps of the Upper Valley Change in Lewiston VT JANUARY 2019 A Vermont Ski Waltz John Ledyard 1773 What is the Upper Valley? DECEMBER 2018 Dartmouth Green Music Video: Sometimes Music Video: Montreal Express Railway Disaster of 1887 |