One thing we have noticed about Vermont is the people are cut from a very different cloth. They are a surprisingly social people. Which, anywhere else, would make me feel out of place, but I find myself very drawn to social, extroverted people. They bring me out of my shell. Maybe it’s because I am craving conversation after pandemic isolation. Or maybe it’s because I don’t feel the anxiety over being judged by these people. They are laid back, happy people and I don’t worry about the fact that I’m a little odd. Because I fit right in.
But, living in the metro area, with conveniences all around you, you find yourself living a very independent life. Which seems backwards, considering you are surrounded by people. But when you have no reason to talk to people and ask for things, because you can just get in your car a drive a couple minutes, you start talking to people less and less.
Out here, though, the introverted life is almost impossible without going a little crazy. And technology is scarce. As a result, people find themselves going back to the old ways of socializing. Knocking on doors, making phone calls, chatting in front of store fronts. It has been interesting to switch to (especially the phone call part) but it has also been surprisingly rewarding. Because you learn so much about a person with those conversations. Vermonters are very open and willing to talk. And never hesitate to tell you a little of their story.
Like the barista at the local cafe who told me how she cut out all sugar from her diet. Except maple syrup. Because she is THAT Vermont.
Or the man who got tangled with his dog while shooting woodchucks and ended up shooting himself in the chest and jaw but stayed awake long enough to get his neighbor and have them drive him to the hospital.
Or the hair stylist who used to lock her older brothers in the chicken coop to be pecked by the chickens because it was her only line of sibling self defense.
But today I met the vermonter to rule them all. He was about as laid back, social hippy as they come.
But let me back up a bit.
On our land, positioned in front of the house is a large birch tree. Years ago, this birch tree separated itself out into three trees from the same base trunk. And one year, one of those trees fell. Right on the home owner’s car. Now, the remaining two trees still stood, but somehow or other (this story changes depending on who you are asking or who is looking at it.) one of the trees got itself a large gash in the trunk. Large enough that it was apparent that this tree was quickly dying and needed to be removed.
Further down, on the other side of the house, was a hemlock that was as dead as a tree could possibly be. And because we weren’t going for the haunted house look in out yard, we figured this tree should also go.
So, I called up the first company I was recommended, who was more than happy to send someone our way to give us a quote. And a couple days later, a fellow comes out and kicks a few tree trunks, makes a few notes and finally says he’d be happy to cut our trees down and the work would come to a grand total of $2000.
Now, we’d done our research prior to this. And from what we looked up, tree removal runs on average about $700 a tree. So this was about what we had expected. And so we spit on our palms and shook on it. Only thing is, he said they were quite backed up and it would be another 7 weeks or so before he could be out here to do the job. But the trees certainly weren’t going anywhere until they cut them down, so I said that’s fine.
Now, fast forward a couple of weeks and, in pure Vermont style, a man comes knocking on our door. He works with trees and is revisiting homes he’s done work for in the past to see if they need any more work. He cut down a massive maple from the property years ago and even worked with one of the kids who lived here for a bit.
Well, we tell him that we do in fact have some trees to cut, but we had another company signed up to do it. And he takes a look at the trees and tells us, he’ll do it for $700 total and he’ll do it the next day.
SOLD!
Well, to be honest, we said we would discuss it and I called the previous company, telling them we will no longer be needing them, and then called Tree Hippy back and said he had the job.
Now, this was yesterday. And we were watching ol’ Henri and wondering if these trees were going to make it through tropical storm winds. We had just about decided we would be watching them fall when Tree Hippy calls us this morning saying he’d be out to cut down a few trees for us before the storm.
Yay Tree Hippy!
Sure enough, this morning, Tree Hippy comes out and gets to work. Now, he’s old school about his tree chopping. No big cherry pickers or diggers or anything. Just pulls up in a little sedan with a couple members of his family, a chainsaw, and tree climbing support.
Within minutes, and some quick chainsaw action, the first tree is down. And he slices it up into logs for us while his family picks up the debris and carries it over to our burn pile.
Now, I’m watching this whole thing from the window. And fascinated by it, because after the storm in utah, my neighbor and a couple other guys took a few days to clean up their fallen tree. This guy took about 15 minutes. And then, I’m watching him, and notice he’s doing something strange to the tree trunk that was left over. Shaving off tiny bits here and there, smoothing out the top.
I was beginning to figure that the many generations of loggers in my family passed nothing down to me and I was completely clueless about the way of tree cutting when I realized, he was trimming my leftover tree stump into a mushroom!
Let me repeat that. My tree stump was now a MUSHROOM!
And I thought, dang that’s cool. And Donovan and I wanted to go out and tell him how cool it was before he started work on the second tree.
We were so cute and innocent having no idea what that conversation would lead to.
It turns out, Tree Hippy is a talker. And not just an “I like to talk to people and they like listening” kind of talker. It was more of an “enter my presence and you have no idea the tidal wave of intense information that will be doused at you for the next half hour before you can get another word into the conversation” kind of talker.
30 minutes later I went back in the house and just sat down. And I told Tyler, I’m not ready to make lunch. I need a minute to recover after that. And I just sat and stared into the oblivion. And Tyler’s all “I told you!” and I’m like “you told me he was a CHARACTER. He’s way beyond character level.”
I can’t cover all that was told to me in those 30 minutes. My memory isn’t good enough to grasp that amount of information at once. But let me summarize a bit.
Tree Hippy was born to a drunk father who was born to his own drunk father. He was given alcohol starting at the age of 8 and by the age of 11, he was driving his drunk father home. By highschool, he was done with school and getting into trouble because “the girls liked him too much and the boys didn’t” because he liked to fight. The principal told him he had heard he wanted to drop out and when Tree Hippy said yes, the principal filled out the paperwork for him to leave.
Tree Hippy made his way down to Florida where he “got himself into some trouble” and ended up doing some time. He got out with the promise that he’d pay his fines and get his GED. Well, he paid his fines and left Florida without getting his GED and now he was a fugitive from the law. When he found himself in some more trouble, he was told to get that GED or they were sending him back to Florida. And he took the tests with above average grades. And for his essay, he wrote about why being the President out the United States of America was the worst job and he capped it right at 500 words because that paper was supposed to be at least 500 words or more and he certainly wasn’t going to do any more work than necessary. Well, they ended up sending that paper to the president and he got a handwritten letter from Bill Clinton himself, thanking him for furthering his education. Which he framed in his “hall of President letters” which contained generic mass letters from other presidents. But this was the only one that was handwritten.
At some point he was hit by a truck while riding his bike and suffered a head injury. This injury put him in a coma for two weeks and he was living hooked to machines in order to survive. The day he woke up, he found his entire family surrounding him and he was certain they were about to unplug him even though they claim they weren’t. But he decided they “ran out of money or just got tired of waiting”. Well, this brain injury did something to him. Ever since then he uses more of his brain. According to him, humans use only 10-15% of their brain, but he now uses 25% of his brain and can see things in nature others don’t see. He can look just about anywhere and see his name. It’s just spelled out there in the way the grass lays or the rocks look. In fact, he saw his name on our barn. And he sees art and beauty everywhere. And when he saw our tree trunk, he saw a mushroom.
He also knows things that others don’t. He knew marijuana would be legal. And he knows that he will live to be 98. His dad will live to 105, but he tells him he going to live to 100 because his dad is ready to leave this earth and would hate to live to 100. So he tells him that just to make him mad.
He also encountered a priest whom he had never met before who told him that God came to him and told him the Tree Hippy needs to stop swearing. Which he thinks is a pretty good sign, but he’s sworn all his life and that’s all he learned in school so he’s not ready to stop yet.
And then he told me how he heard from John Tesh, because “John Tesh is the gospel”, that walking barefoot through the earth gives you energy. And that’s why he has so much energy, because as a kid he ran barefoot through the manure fields even though he smelled like the back end of a cow and no one wanted to come near him. He worked on a farm and it was hard work. And now that he knows the earth gives him energy, he makes sure to give a tree a hug before he cuts it down.
And believe me when I say there is more. There were hints on how to get out of sales tax, history lessons on rock walls, the discovery of pyramids in New England, lessons on how money makes you mean and hateful, and more.
And as Donovan and I tiptoed away, his family was looking at us like “there he goes again running his mouth off”. But then Donovan saw him beckon his family member over to a cut log.
“See,” he says. “There’s my name, right there in that log. I’m not crazy!”
He didn’t quite finish the tree cutting. He got one and a half tree’s cut before his chainsaw slipped a chain. He’ll be back though in a few days and the trees are no longer a concern as far as the storm.
But I can’t wait to see what I learn and how my mushroom stump ends up looking in the end. There’s no way I’m getting rid of that mushroom though because from now on, it will always remind me of Tree Hippy.