Of Stone Walls and Skinny Trees

H&L's  backyard in Vermont

Originally,
Vermont was well forested,
until trees were cleared

to make pasture land
for sheep and dairy cattle.
Late 1800s.

Rocks removed from fields
were stacked as fences to keep
livestock from roaming.

Logging and quarries
became greater industries,
depleting the land.

Not until the mid
1950s was there an
effort to replant.

Pines, birches, maples,
and poplars now rebalance
farms, woods, industry.

Second growth woodlands
explain the thin trunks. Old farms
explain the stone walls.

Rock wall through daughters'
property is probably
(over) a century old.

~dkm 98/365