 We are here to help people really get to focus on our relationship with students, how beautiful they are, and to focus on our relationship with them. What the Tree Board has been doing in Montpelier for over 24 years. I think John's been doing the Tree Board for 24 years? Yeah, I think so. So, I want to walk in your hand. One of the things that has happened in the past year in Montpelier is the bike and hiking path along the edge of Montpelier has been completed out to a way to post a new foot into high school. And the name given to that path is Siva of Wimbley. And that name is of Avanaki origin. And I like the fact that we are naming a path that is going through our land after an Avanaki word is released. And one of the things that we've talked about on the Tree Board to do is to name the trees that are along that path and add the Avanaki names. This one doesn't have it yet, but we're going to put the Avanaki names on the same sign. So as people walk the Siva of Wimbley path, they'll also be able to see, oh, this is a trail route. And there's also the name in Avanaki. So I said this because people have lived in this land for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Montpelier became a city sometime in the 1800s, but most of that there were other people that lived here. And in our curiosity, wouldn't it be fun to find out who these people were, what they did in this area, and what we can learn from their experience? And so I invite us all to reach out and get to know our neighbors in our towns, but also our ancestors. Because our ancestors have a lot to teach us as things are changing. As we get started, what I'd like to do is thank the people who sponsored this festival. First of all, behind you is Sarah's Wegas with the Beth Jacob synagogue. She's one of our sponsors. Emily Sloan, I'd like to thank you for helping us with the North Branch Nature Center, one of the other sponsors. And then the third co-sponsored with the Tree Board is the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. And because of their contribution of dishware, we're able to make this a zero waste event. And we're hoping that our model of venue is zero waste event. She'll be a good example for other people that can't be done. They see what ain't happening, but it can be done. So thank you to all of our sponsors. And now, if you are a Montpelier Tree Board member or a volunteer, you can please stand up. I have the latch up. I can look at the top. I see Bailey. Abby Colligan. Sarah Hoffmeyer. Sean White. Ellen Doyle. So volunteers or Tree Board members. How many of you have planted a tree with Montpelier Tree Board? How many of you have gotten their hands dirty for trees? Thank you. Thank you so much. It's something that we all can do. And even just doing it once helps a lot. So I want to go around the room and have each person that's doing a table here give their name and tell you what they're doing with the Montpelier Tree Board or before Montpelier with their board. So Sean, can I start with you? Again, my name is Sean White and I'm not only from the Montpelier Tree Board, I'm also the project manager for the Friends of the Winooski River. And I encourage you to come talk to me about how trees protect water quality in rivers and habitat, both terrestrial and aquatic organisms. But I also wanted to mention a project that we're doing this year that I'm hoping that either you would like to participate in or would help promote. We have a grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program that allows us to convert lawn into forested landscape. We have free trees, we have the labor to plant them, we'll be volunteer labor. And so if you have a neighbor or a friend who has lawns that you would like to take out of grass and convert to woody buffer, or not woody buffer, but woody vegetation, which is better for habitat. It helps absorb storm water so it improves water quality and prevents flooding as well because places where we have woody vegetation, that vegetation is much better at not only storing carbon but also water. And so if we have areas that are converted from lawn to woody, then we get a better attenuation of flood waters, better water quality, better habitat. So we're really excited about this program and I hope you would consider talking to me about it. You can get your name if you're interested. Also make sure you talk to your friends about it. We're wanting to get as many people involved as possible. I don't know how long the trees are going to last and how many different properties we'll be able to do. So probably what we do is sort of develop a list of people who are interested and then make, you know, decide what our priorities are in terms of where those trees go. So I can't promise, oh, everybody gets free trees, but we have that program available and something we're really excited about. How many trees did you plant last year, Sean? Last year with friends of winners, we planted 2,800 trees. That's actually lower than our actual average. We were kind of, we sort of feel like, I feel like I have to say that, you know, like 2,800 is not. Usually it's more like 4,000. This year we're planting, the plan is to plant 3,800 and we're hoping that that will go up. So we'll get back to our 4,000 a year standard. But also if you're at all interested in planting with us, we need volunteers all the time, especially in April and May. And so if you're interested in planting trees, you can come put your name down and I'll contact you about that. Also, if you're ever interested in sampling water, we do water quality sampling all summer long. And so if you're interested in that, I can get your name for that too. And I'd love to talk to anybody who's interested in what we do. Thanks. Thank you, Sean. I'm going to introduce Sarah Hoffmeier and then we could talk. So Sarah. We're connected. Sarah Hoffmeier. What I love about the tree board is everybody has kind of a specialty that they bring to it. So Sean, rivers, river ecosystems, lens education. And it's so important to have that. My background is in landscape design. And through that lens I feel like planting, you don't just want to go out and get to tree anywhere. So planting at the right space is really important. And everybody on the tree board, we kind of have our list that we go for. So calling Dick's safe before you plant a tree for underground utilities, other stuff that's underground. And this all ties into the neighborhood tree planting. So we want to grow trees in neighborhoods and basically in the right of way is where we do our plantings. And so the tree board will come out and we do Dick's safe for you free labor and free tree. And you just have to water it. We also send out email reminders for when to water. It's a great program. We've already planted hundreds of trees in the last five years. If you think you have a spot that might be good for a tree, sign up with Ken. He has the sign up list. And we'll come out and check it out for you. We want to talk about what's important to you. We don't want to plant a tree that in 20 years is going to shade out your vegetable garden. We really work with how does this tree fit into your whole landscape? But we need more trees on the streetscape in particular. There are a ton of benefits. It's been shown that it reduces blood pressure when you're walking down the city street. It lowers traffic, the speed limits. People go slower when there's a big tree canopy. There are all these benefits for it. We don't want here to have a lot of time. If you want to know more, come talk to us. I'm going to be the tree board person now. I'd rather not stand over here. Another thing that we're doing with the tree board is trying to plant along streams. And so, again, if you have even small little, you know, what people sometimes will say, well, I've got just a ditch. I don't have a stream on my property. But anything, you know, no matter what the size, we would like to plant along those two. Because stream buffers, especially along the smaller streams and the headwater streams, are really important in terms of water quality. So that's part of the Montpelier tree board mission for this city. Thank you. Can we speak to being a volunteer? Sure. I'm Ken Luritalp and I've been a volunteer for, I think, Helen Coolidge was a person. I don't know. I came up to Vermont with a lot of folks from the up-city area. And I have to say, I was concerned that Montpelier and the general area did not have what it should have in terms of tree cover. And it's been very exciting to see the work of the tree board in really making the city, not only the tree city, be proud of the neighborhoods and the area. So I just want people to know that not only do we need more trees, if I can quote you, Sarah, we need more volunteers. And there are, you know, all kinds of things you can do. Obviously, you can close your eyes and think of a hot day in June right now and how pleasurable it would be to be digging a hole for a tree. And that should make you want to sign up. And we really would like you to sign up before you leave. Lynn, I don't know if I got it right. Did you say people don't sign up to be a volunteer? So I'm not eligible for any of the incredible. I'm not eligible. We don't sign up to be a volunteer. You have to sit on it. So the long in the short is I'll be around. We'd love to have, you know, all kinds of ideas. One of the things that you can add, not only physical work, one of our board members or members of the treatment, he came up with an idea of how people have children in town. Wouldn't it be great to offer them a tree to plant that would, you know, in 10, 15, 25, 30 years be magnificent. But I also look around this room and I think we should expand it to include grandparents that have grandkids or something to make sure they're eligible because not everybody's going to go out after this meeting and start new families and be eligible. So whatever it takes, we want to do it. We want you to sign up and I'll be around. I hope a few of you will sign up. We can talk about how to get engaged over the year. Obviously, we'll need more work as the weather hits straight. Thank you. Dora, can you tell us about... Hi, everybody. Yeah, of course. So our office is right in Montpelier, on Barry Street. Dora, can we email? Some of us can't hear. Okay. So my name is Dora and I'm serving at the Central Montfauld Woods Management District and we are located right on Barry Street in Montpelier and we serve 19 towns in this district and Montpelier is one of them. So our goal is to help you learn how to compost and make sure that you're composting properly and if you have any questions about that today, feel free to come up to me. And we also hold workshops and provide a lot of resources on our website and other areas to help support people in their composting journey. Thank you, Dora. Gary. Hello. My name is Carrie Riker and I work here at North Branch Nature Center with Emily and Ken, who will be doing the tree ID walk figure. I'm here today to represent the ECO program, Educating Children Outdoors. We take 12 different schools outside as part of their regular school day, public schools as part of their school day, doing standard to base lessons. This is just a sample of some of our lessons that relate to the involved trees. And we don't have a total of the number of teachers that we work with. I personally work with about 20 different teachers, 20 classrooms. So we should do a tally sometime to see how many we work with. But I'm happy to host you all here. We also do summer camps and after-school programs with children and then we have our newsletters out in the hallway to show you all the other things we have going. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Carrie. Patrick from Greenmouth Cemetery. It's the one that's located near the creamy stand on the sharp corner down on Route 2. Trees. When the cemetery began back in 1852, Calvin Keith, who requested money to buy land suitable for a cemetery, of course they bought a hillside, planted thickly with trees. Because at that time, and we have some old photos, that whole hillside right up the tear street was all bare. It was from the sheep farms. So a lot of trees have come and gone in Greenmouth. We're starting to put them back in strategic places, good species for whatever area that we have. So what are we doing with the tree board? We make compost. And we give them a little bit of compost every year for their street plantings. We are now have an area that we're doing green burials. We're calling them natural burials. There'll be no monuments. There'll just be flat markers. It'll be pollinators. The first section will have an apple orchard within all the burials. What I want you to, I came here not to talk about cemetery lots, but just take a look at the cemetery and please use us as a classroom for trees. Our success story was 20, is about 28 years ago. We planted 10 black walnut trees down there. They're right along Route 2. This year we had more than, nobody picked them all. Usually people take them and I don't get a chance to find them. But this year there was a great abundance of them. And that was, you know, 26, 27 years ago when we spent $5 a tree. I had one of my crotchety older cemetery commissioners write a letter, or had a forester write a letter saying they're not hardy. But they are hardy. So we're open to all kinds of ideas down there. And just come and let me know what you want. Thank you. Has donated a soil saver, collectified gallon buckets and three containers that go on the countertop and a safe, healthy cleaning kit made with vinegar and baking soda. So we want to thank the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District for their donations to the door prizes. Also, greenout cemetery has donated a full yard of really rich compost that if your number gets drawn, you can pick that. And there are people here who have their eyes on that yard of compost. I already know that. We have door prizes from the drawing board. It has given us some door prizes for children. We have books that have come in that have been discounted to us from their kind of books. Abby, what other door prizes do we have? Which I like very much. Oh, absolutely. Thank you. PJ Library, the beautiful story walk out there. Rabbi Toby Weiss and the PJ Library set that up and they brought some beautiful material here. And we have four or five books that are related to this special holiday of two-ish thoughts in the selection for children. So thank you so much for that. Anything on the table? Who have I? Who have I left out? I know I left that out. All right. I want to come around real quickly. John, can you tell us a bit about your display? John, I'm here with the tree board. My display is all about the emerald ash board, which is an invasive acid that kills ash trees. It originated in this country back around 2002. It spread to most of the states in the east, surrounded Vermont, and finally invaded our state in 2018. If you folks are familiar with the National Life Campus up on the hill, that's where we found the emerald ash board in several trees that have been cut down and chipped. So we're very concerned because it will kill all the ash trees if it's left unchecked. And what we've done is basically decided to try to slow the spread because you really can't stop it. There's nothing to do in terms of stopping this bug. It will kill all your ash trees unless you treat them with a momectin benzoate, which is a pesticide that's injected into the tree and can kill the bug when it comes to eat on the leaves. We are concerned again about the spread, so we're doing a monitoring program every year to see where it's spread from the National Life or where it shows up. For that, we need volunteers to help do surveys on the street trees. We have 400-plus street trees, ash trees, in the city. We have about 170 ash trees along trails in Hubbard Park. If you're familiar with Hubbard Park, there are a bunch of ash trees along trails there. So those trees are at risk. And then we did a statistical study to figure out how many trees were on private property. And in Montpelier alone, there's probably 2,700 ash trees on private property. So it's very important for us to try to slow the spread, and the way we can do that is to identify where the bug has gotten to and remove those trees and the offspring that are in the trees, the larvae that are in the trees. So I do welcome you to come and look at our display and become familiar with the Emerald Ash Whore and ash trees and ask any questions you have about what's going on with ash trees in Montpelier. Thank you, John. What you got? My name is Jack. I am serving in Eco AmeriCorps with the Montpelier's Parks and Trees Department. And I have a fun tree identification activity over here. We also have these really beautiful photos that John Snell took, which are really fun to test your knowledge. It says what kind of tree it is on the back. And then we also have this giant tree cookie from a tree taken down from Bailey Street. So come over and try and see if you can count the rings and see how old it is. We're here to give us a welcome. So I would like to introduce Anne Watson to just say a few words. I'm Anne Watson, a mayor in Montpelier, and I'm so excited for this event and to hear Catbox and speak. I actually got a chance to hear Catbox and actually at the VCAN conference back in December. And I found it, I didn't tell you this, but I found it deeply inspiring. And so I've been thinking a lot about soils in Montpelier and what we can be doing as a community. Having healthy soils is everyone's business. That's something that we all need to be thinking about. And so I've been thinking about having a neighborly competition, if you will, as to how we can potentially be converting our yards, like our front yards or our side yards, to away from grass and towards various things like pollinator yards or food producing yards, fruit and nut trees, vegetable growing yards, that sort of thing. And so I'm anticipating that perhaps not for this summer, but perhaps for the next summer, we can be exploring the possibility of having a good neighborhood Montpelier based competition who can have the best pollinator yards or the best fruit growing or vegetable growing yards, that sort of thing. This year we might spend some time doing some education about how we can best be changing the soil in our yards to be healthy and what makes sense for the places where we live. So I'm really excited about that. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about that briefly. There's going to be more information coming out about that soon. But that's all I have to say for now. And I'm so excited to hear about what Kat has to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. For now at the moment where Kat Buxton can begin saying what she has to say. And I met Kat in February or March at a soil series. And I cannot believe that I was hearing someone talk about things that I noticed happening in my own yard. And so Kat is going to show you what it is that I learned in my own yard. All right. So hi, everybody. I'm Kat Buxton. I live in Bethmore currently from the upper valley. Oh, thanks. Do you want me to clip that? Or OK. You might be wondering what I'm doing with bread. We're going to make some sandwiches. That's not true. This bread is a stand-in for a landscape. And in this container, I have flour, which is a stand-in for another landscape. I love some volunteers. Can we get one more volunteer? OK. So this is a rain cloud. There are little holes hooked in the bottom. This is a stand-in for a degraded landscape, otherwise known as dirt, which is, for the purposes of this analogy, this is sand, silt, and clay. This is a stand-in for a healthy landscape. Can anyone tell me what makes bread bread? Like, how does it get fluff in it? Louder? Yes. Is yeast alive or dead? Alive. Does flour have yeast in it? No. OK. So degraded landscape, sand, silt, and clay, healthy landscape, sand, silt, and clay, and biology living organisms. Could you be the rain cloud? And could you be the creator who makes the rain? And so you want to just maybe hold your rain cloud up a little bit higher. There you go. Right over the top. And fill that cup to the top. OK. That's probably good. Now what is happening in this degraded landscape? Shout it out. It's getting wet. It's getting wet. There's flooding. Erosion. Erosion. Erosion. Yep. What else? Flooding. Erosion. What color is that water? Merky. Merky. How come? Mixed with flour. It's a degraded landscape. Yes. Sand, silt, and clay. Yeah. It's not flour anymore. OK. If I was a plant living in this landscape or a tree, would I have just gotten a drink? If we were to take this paddle and poke a hole in the middle of this pile of flour, would it be wet or dry at the bottom? Do you want to try that? And go ahead and find the plate. And then you'll have to look with your eyes to see, is it wet or dry? It is dry. So this is flooding and drought in the same place at the same time. Let's rain on the healthy landscape and see if you guys know what to do now. Do you want to turn? Sure. OK. Continue to be a creator. This is a rain cloud. Just going to hold that. What's that for? This is a healthy landscape. It's bread. But it's a healthy landscape. You can fill that cup right to the top. OK. Hold your cloud up a little bit so everyone can see what is happening to this landscape. Our rain cloud slowed down a little bit with the second pour. I have a spare. OK. Go ahead and just pour that whole cup right on that bread. A healthy landscape. OK. Oh, because it's dry right there? Here, let's rain. Yeah. A little more water. It's raining. It's raining and... Interesting. OK. So what's happening to this landscape? So go ahead and pour the rest of that. OK. This landscape, we just poured more water by the way, about half as much again. And what's happening here? It absorbed the water. If we were to pour another cup of water on this landscape, what would happen? It would soak it up and at some point it would get saturated. And then we might get some water around this landscape. And what color would that water be? Clear. Why? Why is this one cloudy and this one clear? Because it filters it. It filters it. Soil is a filter. Healthy soil is a filter. And so the big difference between degraded soil and healthy soil is... Biology. Biology. Yes. In the plant. And for the sake of this and that this is a wonderful teaching tool for people of all... Thank you so much. For people of all ages. So, if I were a plant in this landscape would I have just gotten a drink? Yes. If I were to poke my finger all the way through these four slices of bread a.k.a. healthy landscape would it be wet or dry at the bottom? Wet. Wet. Moist. Do you want to try? Can I try too? Yeah. Two fingers. Yeah. Right to the bottom. You're going to have to push your hand in a little. Is it wet or dry down there? Wet. Wet. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you lived in a place where you got only two inches of rain a year which landscape would you rather be in? Healthy. Healthy. Hmm? Healthy. The healthy. The bread? I usually have two different color plates but I forgot my blue plate today, sorry. So, if you lived in a place that was really, really windy which would you rather be in? Ready. Healthy. What would happen if I was a windstorm right now? Hold your breath. So, it just rained really, really hard flooding, drought in the same place, dust bowl. Can I do it? Okay. Blow that way. See that? What about this one? Can you blow on this one? What's going to happen? Blow really, really hard. Harder. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Okay. That was a good blow. Nothing happened. If you lived in a place where you got 16 inches of rain a year which place would you rather be in? Healthy. You get it. So, you get it? Yeah. Great exercise. So, this was designed by a woman named Dee Dee Purse House who lives in Thetford with a high school biology teacher as they were teaching students about soil health. And this activity has now been done all over the world. It doesn't matter what language you use, the activity works. And one tip I can give you, gas station bread is the key. And then I don't feel so bad about wasting food because I don't like to waste food. We live in times where a lot of people don't have access to food. It's compostable. It is compostable. It doesn't generally mold on its own which is kind of weird. But with the help of other microbes it will. Thank you so much. All right. We'll leave that out for you all to look at. Another extension of this activity is using monopoly houses and pieces of plants. And after about an hour or so the piece of plant here is just completely wilted because of course it never got a drink. But this one sometimes you can take and stick in a glass of water and actually root at the end of the day. So, it works. The monopoly houses also help, especially when I'm doing this work out in California. We can talk about mudslides, which is what people, kids out there say mudslides not erosion. Interesting, right? Okay. So, I have some slides I'd like to take you through. Cat Buxton is my name. Grownmore Wasteless is my business. Soil health principles, which I've got here for your continued reference. If you leave here with one thing today, I hope it's that you understand there are principles of soil health. They were designed by, well, people have known this for as long as people have been on the planet. I think it's really worth saying that these are principles, not practices. But the NRCS, which is the Natural Resources Conservation Service, recently within the last few years coined the top four as being the soil health principles that we all need to embrace. Number five was coined by a guy named Gabe Brown. Anybody here ever heard of Gabe Brown? Amazing rancher from North Dakota. His book is one of the prizes. We're on the table. From dirt to soil in one of my mentors. And number six, slow and sink the water. It just makes sense. And if these are all in place, this happens. But I like to include that as a principle as well. A lot of words on that slide. I'm not probably going to stick around long enough on it for you to read them all so fast. But healthy soil really is the thing that holds our communities in place. Have you all heard about that trees talk? Right? So that happens underground. And it happens through microbial activity. There are billions and billions and billions of microbes in the ground. In fact, on us, in us all over every single living thing. And they're part of who makes rain happen in our atmosphere. So microbes are everywhere. And we're just starting to learn about microbes. In terms of soil microbes, we know anywhere from five to 20% of what we think there might be to know about soil microbiology. And what we're learning is flipping everything else we know upside down, which is so exciting. In a single teaspoon of healthy soil, you might find 75,000 species of bacteria, 10 to 20,000 species of nematodes, a few hundred protozoa, micro arthropods, earthworms, and some of the bigger guys that we could see with our naked eye. One teaspoon. In that same teaspoon, there could be a mile of stretched out fungal hyphel strands. One teaspoon. And those fungal hyphel strands, and those are just little filaments of fungus, some of which are that mycorrhizal fungus that we're starting to learn so much about, and it's really exciting. What can we learn from that? So one of the things I like to do in the world is talk about how can we build the social mycelium to hold our communities together, mimicking the mycelium underground, literally holding our landscapes together. So biomimicry. What can we learn from that? I'm going to take you through a little short thing I like to call sunshine to aggregate, and this is how it all works. These are the drivers of everything that we know. And it all comes back to the sun. Thank goodness we have the sun, and today is a great day for sun. So making the connections to the circle of life through sunlight, carbon, and water. We've been hearing a lot about carbon, and I think it's cool that people want to learn about carbon, but we have to remember that carbon is constantly cycling. We don't just take it out of one place and put it in another. That's not really how it works. It's a cycle. So when we compost, for instance, we're taking carbon and we're making compost, and it's a respirating carbon. It's a respirating CO2 and nitrogen, and possibly even methane, depending on how you're doing it. So it's a cycle. We need to engage in that as a cycle and not compartmentalize. Put it here or put it there. So photosynthesis, water, light, and chemical energy. The sun has an energy budget for Earth, and I like to focus on this 50% of the sunlight that shines down. 50% is absorbed by the planet. 40 to 60% is actually invested by plants into their root systems to feed billions and billions and billions of organisms under the ground, and that is the Soil Food Web, which was really just coined as a phrase in the 1990s. So it's a very, very new part of science. So we're going to focus down there, which also, by the way, helps to drive the water cycle. This area, highlighted in blue, is what we call the risosphere, which is so rise as roots. So it's the area around root systems. We're beginning to learn that this tree root system is actually much larger than this picture shows us, of course, depending on the kind of tree and the kind of conditions it's growing in. This is a close-up of a single root hair, and that blue area is describing the risosphere. The little red dots in there are a stand-in for bacteria and other organisms. The white lines coming in and out, that's mycorrhizal fungus. So those are the fungal-hyphal hairs that actually connect even the finest root hairs and offer that kind of really dynamic intelligence and communication that we don't really embody so well as a species. In that risosphere, and all around that in the soil, we have the soil food web, and it's not about one species. You know, you could have lots of bacteria in your soil, but if you don't have nematodes and protozoa coming in there and eating and pooping, there's no nutrient cycling. So these organisms, all of them, produce organic acids that can actually dissolve sand, silt, and clay, taking all of the nutrients and making them available to plants and then all of the other creatures that eat those plants and bugs, et cetera. So this is how our biome is built, our gut biome. Having all the different spheres of organisms is incredibly important, and this is what is new about the soil food web that we didn't know before. Just bacteria is not enough. And when we think about the kinds of bacteria, I see a lot of really worrisome products on the market, like, you got these 12 bacteria, like, great, 12 out of 75,000 potential species. How'd you pick those? And are they from my region? Can they even survive here? Did they make it through the mail? We just don't really know a lot about these organisms. But we know that they are the drivers of nutrient systems. So that pentagenesis, the first lichen attached itself to rock, that was the system I just described. It's photosynthesis with the exodus, those carbons, the CO2 out of the air being turned into sugars. Think of them as like the cakes and cookies. One of my teachers in Lane Income likes to talk about that. The cakes and cookies that feed the microbes under the ground. And not all microbes like the same flavor cupcake. They like all different kinds of flavors that come in from all different kinds of trees and all different kinds of plants. So diversity begets diversity, begets diversity. These root systems, this is a slide from the Southwestern prairie plants. So a lot of these plants are not ours, but you probably, the gardeners in there will probably recognize a few like Lupin and Echinacea. There are some mustards in here. But the point is more that if the soil, if the geological conditions can support it, we can have root systems that go this deep. So if we don't have like big rocks in our soil and ledge, we can have root systems that go this deep. And I'd just like to point out that this is 15 feet. Did you have any idea that plants could go that deep? These are perennial plants. And when we think back to this and that, I get really excited about the potential of numbers and diversity of those organisms that are recycling nutrients for us. There was no one walking through the forest with a bag of fertilizer. Right? We don't need bags of amendments to make plants get nutrients that they need. All we need is the biology that can turn sand, silt, and clay into every single element and nutrient that we need. That's how nature's been doing this long before chemical companies. This is your standard lawn. So when we think about lawns, this is a slide that's actually from it's in the context of grazing. So this is getting into what happens under the ground when you chop above the ground. This is how we recommend grazing. This is often how it happens. This is never how we mow our lawns. Right? Can we change how often we mow? Can we change the amount of space that is even mowable? Which I love this contest you're putting for it. I think that's really great. But I like lawns too. It's nothing like laying on the warm grass dry warm grass in the middle of the summer or using it for badminton or any number of things. Like lawns can be great. So how do we shrink those? How do we manage those in a way that supports the life underground? How can we do that? And I could give you lots of ways we could, but I bet you can come up with your own as well. So can we build soil faster than the lost rate? This picture down here is pretty famous at this point. That is Long Island Sound after Tropical Store Marine. That's Vermont's top soil and dirt roads. I personally know farmers that lost the entire farm literally all of their top soil went down the river. And these are organic farmers well meaning wonderful folks that till a lot. They make flour. They specialize in making flour out of landscapes. That's what tilling machines do. This is Iowa Corn in 2018 and you can almost see the soil leaving and going down that river even in that still shell. As if the dust bowl didn't happen we are now planting directly up to the river banks again. What did you just say tillers do? Tillers? If I were to take a tiller on this bread I would get this flour. So tilling, disturbance of any kind I mean just think about it you're a little microbe in the ground and this big machine comes at you, right? It happens and we kill microbes that's how we've created more desertified landscapes across the globe than any other species. Go humans. And tillage is a big part, not the only part but a big part of it. So how do we avoid compaction and improve water infiltration? When we're thinking about planting trees and urban areas compaction is definitely something to consider with all of our houses and our walking and our cars and tractors and all of this pavement we are compacting so we're not allowing a place for water to infiltrate like the bread, right? So how do we get the biology back into our landscapes to build the sponge? This is a soil carbon sponge soil carbon sponge carbon and water fill soil with life when we create the conditions to invite carbon and water back into our landscapes. On the top is a NRCS rainfall simulator anybody ever seen one of those in action? It's a really cool exercise. The five blocks of soil all have a bit of a screen on the bottom so that they won't fall through but it's basically like a cookie cutter and each of those blocks of soil is representing a different kind of top of the ground. So we have everything from this one which I can see some of the soil health principles in place like living roots in the ground yep maximized diversity I see at least two different kinds of leaves minimize disturbance I don't see any tillage don't know if there were chemicals minimize bare soil there's really none animals in contact with the soil maybe that's from a grazing pasture soil health principles this one has none zero soil health principles is that clear whoops whoops there we go when we pour water on this landscape much like the flower and bread exercise the back line of jars is collecting how much water infiltrated into the ground the front line of jars is how much water ran off notice that the bare soil has no infiltration it's just like the flower the bottom of the plate was dry and this is also just like the flower all of the water that ran off is the same color of the substance that ran off from on this side with living roots in the ground we have 100% infiltration and the color of the water is pretty good and we had no runoff it's a really fun activity there's lots of way you can try it at home without big fancy equipment and then this bottom picture is just basically the same thing but just talking about runoff when we have good ground cover we get almost no this is just runoff it's a little confusing it's not infiltration down here cities of course if we have 100% pavement we're gonna get 100% runoff so let's talk about that water that water is a gift from the skies that is rainwater that is water is life and we create systems where we take that rainwater and throw it away like a waste product we say get out of here as soon as possible get down to the sound bring all our toxins with it just get out you're a problem and now what we're thinking about let's let's manage this better we have these green stormwater infrastructure programs really well intention but it's more concrete and metal how about the soil carbon sponge as a way of managing green stormwater like this is green stormwater infrastructure right here and the laborers are the billions and billions and billions of biological organisms that live under the soil and are supported by the plants feeding them through photosynthesis we can manage water better by allowing it to infiltrate and soak in and retain in place where it fell it's retained that's the way nature does it rain gardens we can get really creative with this and I know Montpelier has some pretty great rain gardens I think the ESU has one ESU yeah great hospitals this is some inspiring stuff that I've been seeing more and more of roofed up gardens vertical gardens this one is in Burlington they have a rooftop garden and they let their patients walk up in the gardens and the food goes into the hospital and the last time I checked in with that hospital which is a number of years ago they had a policy that 50% of the food served in their hospital would come from within 100 miles of the hospital and they actually send their administrative staff in the food service out to farms to meet growers and those relationships that social mycelium is really where all of that change starts one of the many hats I wear is I run an edible schoolyard at Thetford elementary school in Thetford been there for about 10 years it's a K through 6 we have 13 raised beds, raspberries blueberries cranberries peach trees pear trees apple trees and in onsite composting system and the kids plant all the seeds they grow the gardens we have summer school in the summertime they do a harvest meal every year and lots of other curriculum based projects this is some of the food that goes into their cafeteria and we also have a 5-bin onsite composting system where the 5th and 6th graders manage all of the food waste produced at the school including bones, 200 pounds of food scraps that we are managed by the students there upper valley apple core is another hat I wear much like the tree board and a lot of what I see a lot of the people in this room doing going out and planting fruit and nut trees we like to do it in public places and make sure that everyone knows that the fruits are free for the picking and we do a lot of education to support the care of the trees helping us build skills about how to live with trees and be stewards and also how to use the fruit coming off of the trees especially for our lowest income population many of which don't even have access to a toaster oven this is a food forest that we are putting together in white river junction as a part of the river walk trail it's a really exciting place at the center for transformational practice and what we have done here is we have put in a lot of many different species really trying to maximize diversity it's a training ground so we are also trying things like pool of culture and composting of various styles and we have uncovered many of the native species that well whether they were native to the area for a long time or whether they were just remnants of the avanaki who are still here we found apple grows berry patches and some nut grows that were natural and a park in strafford, the edible pocket park another just really cool idea it's a tiny little peninsula and they planted amazing gills each one of these is considered like a gill with lots of plants to support the main trees like this is the plum gill I highly recommend checking that place out a gill of anyone freezing in if you've never heard that term used for trees okay so a gild as we know it from a human standpoint a gild is a group of people that supports one another artist gild, builder gild, etc tree gills in terms of plants are a grouping of plants that support the tree and this is a permaculture concept and I don't want to get too into great detail but some of the things that you'd be looking for are plants with very deep tap roots like comfrey or dandelion or many of our locust types or lupins they're a dynamic accumulator so when we go back to thinking about the rhizosphere and that area that's full of biological organisms and dealing with compaction those are plants that are really good at penetrating soil bringing lots of fine root hairs with them that are coated in biological organisms that then help to bring up the nutrients from the subsoil to the plants available. Another functional part might be mulching plant so comfrey is another one or any of the plants that grow lots of leaves on top and especially if they die back and then grow a second round in our summers here those are mulchers so they're natural suppressants things don't like to grow up through that big pile of leaves and then those leaves become soil and another one is a pollinator attractor or attractor of any kind not just pollinators, there are lots of beneficial insect functions, pollination is really important but it's not the only one so those are some of the examples of the roles that different plants in a guild might play and certain plants can have multiple roles in a way so rethinking lawns it sounds like there's a movement to do that in Montpelier and that is really cool again lawns can be great and it's important to think about how is this space used if people like to play in this lawn and we know it's this area let's leave that lawn and let's build up everything else with shrubs and trees and perennial plants how can we deepen those root systems how can we increase biodiversity I was just thinking when you were talking about the selection for what you might win what about who's got the most number of species who can have the most diversity in their lawn that could be a really cool thing there are so many, the number of lawns is anywhere from 30 to 50 million depending on what you look at some include state grounds and some include golf courses and some are only residential and I think it's a really hard thing to track generally but it's a huge amount of acreage that we cover in lawns that have no support system for everybody else underground so how can we change that how can we do it at school how can we do it in towns, on state land in our home lawns and what do we do it with can we just willy-nilly plant anything I would suggest trying to pay attention to what is growing around our region and what other creatures need in our region oak tree can support 300 different insects 456 species right not even butterflies so microbes macros above the ground insects birds larvae humans, mammals who else is using that tree and if you're bringing in an ornamental you really love the smell of that flower but no one else can use it well maybe you just have one of those I'm not saying don't delight yourself with wonderful smells but let's think about who else lives here and how we need to support each other because it's not just us supporting them without them we are dumb so diversity in species think about structurally this is one reason why the edges are so exciting like the edge of field the edge of atmosphere the edge of places is where the highest amount of diversity and function is if you think about the edge of a field you've got all these different species that are layering up into a tree line and that's where you're going to find the largest amount of diversity hardiness and tolerance to our region I mean we got to do this or you're just wasting your money where is it from how will it perform here in our region you know we like forsythia up here I think forsythia is a wonderful bush but where I'm originally from in Connecticut they hate it because it grows everywhere it takes over entire bags here it's like a nice neat little bush so how is the plant going to react in our environment attracting insects of all kinds of pollinators are great but there are lots more to consider of the 900,000 insects that we know about and we argue about whether or not they're twice as many as that only 1% are known to be harmful to humans and only a fraction of those are agricultural pests and yet we've managed an insect apocalypse trying to eradicate a fraction of 1% then we didn't do it we didn't eradicate them edible landscapes wild plants are amazing right and more nutritious than most of the things we buy in the grocery store so know your wild plants be thinking of those for your lawn one of my favorite times to not my lawn is in early spring when everything first starts coming up and all the grasses are the most nutritious because they've just stored their energy all winter long and you can eat and you can I mean and buy the flowers and it's just it's like a green shop in the lawn that's an exciting time to learn about wild edibles it's also when you can find wild leeks and fiddle heads in our region invasive plants I just want to I put this slide in here because I just like to encourage people to think differently about these plants the word invasive I find very troublesome and if we want to really think about invasive species we need look no further than the mirror um and I like to think of these plants like are we do we know everything we need to know before we judge this path of eradication which we've never been good at zero success stories um so we might want to just think about that are these plants the first responders are they the first ones to recover bare ground are they the first ones to conduct photosynthesis and encourage biological systems underground I don't know that they always are but I just think these are important questions to ask before we deem anything as invasive or does not belong um and I always like to end with actions there are so many things we can do and I think the most important of all of them is do actually do it get out and volunteer with the tree board dig some holes bring water to those trees for the first three years um harvest the fruits teach your neighbors teach your friends eat the fruit um do we are you know I just I heard a quote from a woman who is in Australia where I'm sure everybody knows at this point that they were massive like we've never seen before on earth fires in Australia and she her quote was the time for reskilling is over we're in survival mode so that really sat with me and I you know we like to talk about getting together and talk about how we're going to do this and how we want to do this and let's you know talk about carbons the question let's talk about all this stuff how about we do it let's go to our school and start a compost system let's start a garden in our schools let's plant trees in our towns let's work together and support each other as we do this and that's it thank you some questions so for five minutes let's let's give Kat a chance to answer your personal questions any questions Japanese knot we've showed up on your edibles slide how do you like to communicate when it first comes up in the spring when the shoots are about this tall I cook it like asparagus I don't you know I shouldn't possibly eat enough so don't ask me to come cut yourself yeah I mean what a prolific plant right I mean amazing and it also contains medicine some of the most promising medicine to treat Lyme disease is actually found as a compound in that plant isn't that interesting what does it taste like it tastes kind of like a sour asparagus it's somewhere between rhubarb and asparagus it tastes like knotweed but yeah something like that I have some farmer friends that harvest it and take it down in New York City and sell it as red asparagus for ten dollars a pound can I make a comment about that dog? I think it's great to go out and eat knotweed but I really caution people about don't plant it don't eat it we've got enough of it everywhere and it does not really support very much diversity in terms of wildlife or soil organisms I just eat it where you find it we don't know how many soil organisms it supports well the studies that have been done I'll just say that we've got plenty of it I think it depends on what you look at you look at it's pretty good in terms of water source for pollinators but it also pretty much will eliminate any native species in the narrative I think it's just be careful I totally hear that caution is important one of the things I wonder about that plant is it going to be the plant that holds our rivers in place it absolutely does not do that it destroys well it destroys the ecosystem it destroys the stream bank because it does not have those fine root structures that you're talking about it's so important it only has rhizomes it doesn't have root hairs it actually destabilizes the banks and that's how it moves right after I read it it just all of a sudden we have it everywhere because it doesn't have the root hairs that hold the stream banks together when high water comes it actually will break so that's the way it's designed to work that's how it's evolved so the good news is if you're out there and you see all this and you don't plant it and the bamboo left afterwards can be used in all sorts of crafts I also often get asked can I use that in my compost my answer is don't because I've seen it re-sprout from an apparently dead but if you do, take good notes and tell me how it works other questions I was wondering a little bit about the process of starting your food forest your food forest model down I guess in the gravel road excuse me, could you just explain a little bit about that process and how that started so it started because we had an abandoned abandoned by people and lots of trash was put in there and we were trying to clean this up and so this is in a neighborhood where there were lots of children in a windy road that was super dangerous so we were trying to build paths, foot paths that connected a park into this nice wood zone where we all find treasures in there and created these paths and then it became a place we began celebrating and this particular place has every kind of invasive plant you could think of in our region there are no less than nine really aggressive species buckthorn, bayberry knotweed garlic mustard eulonymous, they're all there the multi-flora rows that can grow 50 foot up in a tree and strangle it, it's there too and we thought, you know what we could you know, what would humans do and what have they tried to do in the past year they tried to come in and clean out all the bad stuff didn't work they created conditions where all of those plants thrive instead so we began celebrating those plants and eating the rose hips off of those really tall trees and eating the grapes that grew there and using some of those materials to make things and then planting in any places where we did try to remove species, we would plant in with native species cover that ground right away and then over time it evolved into we started planting trees and fruit trees and all kinds of shrubs and so it just evolved into a workforce so it started out as a neighborhood project for safety and water waterfront access and then it evolved from there and it's still evolving and anyone can come visit Cat, if I could add to what you're saying if you walk what we used to call the bike path and you go down between say the high school all the way to where you're heading to the train tracks so the sea has blueberries and pear trees and plum trees and what else exactly what else have you guys planted out there elderberry? Most things are actually fruiting and what we really need as a tree board is a group of people who would like to join us and sign up on Ken's list to help us manage that this summer there's some fruiting that's needed there's harvesting needed we need to put maybe some fallen leaves and distinguished spaces out there but we need to keep taking care of those trees that we've already planted and then our terminator here, Steve Bailey who is an amazing force of interest with knotweed will be out there this summer leaving spaces where we can plant so he will be removing the knotweed and we can go in and plant more food steps so I'm sorry but but we're working towards that food forest idea so I just wanted to bring that into the picture I love the concept of food forest and the pocket park that I mentioned is you could call that a food forest except it's really pretty small so we call it a pocket park sounds cuter any other one more question I just wanted to ask if it might be of anybody who's interested in wild harvesting even if it's from your lawn just please be aware of a lot of these species including knotweed they draw toxins they're a bioremediator so if you're within a certain foot of a road or anywhere where a car has been parked for a long time just please use wisdom because plants inherently will draw up a lot of things they're even it yeah thanks for saying that you didn't mention it and that's the other side of I talked about dynamic accumulator as being a functional yield plant same concept those same plants they accumulate nutrients but they also accumulate toxins which in some scenarios means that those toxins are being held and being taken out of soil hence the remediation piece this is one way to try and remove toxins from soils to certain plants and then compost those plants hoping or sometimes knowing that the soil biology is going to further remediate those toxins in a compost pile really interesting stuff so I do have a table out here with lots of activities that welcome you to touch all of them I have seeds and soil samples and sorts of really pure things plastic bugs and magnifying glasses and I'm happy to answer your questions out there as well if you don't want to ask them in the crowd format big hand for the question