Forget trying to use the internets to identify green lichens like the one above. There are few sites and they are organized often by scientific name, not by description. Other sites have no photographs. Some have only drawings. It is futile to search. So if you happen to know the name of this lichen, please leave a comment! Photographed in early December in Wilmot, NH.
This marker is in a lot in Wilmot Center and marks the site of the first town hall built in 1844 by Daniel Upton for "$250 and the old meeting house" which stood within Bunker Hill Cemetery.
When a Connecticut Congregationalist such as myself hears the word "meeting house" she thinks of a Congregational meeting house — a church. When she hears "town house" she may think of a colonial tavern. But in New Hampshire the phrases "town house" and "meeting house" mean town hall. John thought I knew what they meant and I thought John knew what they meant. So we never understood each other for months when John tried to tell me the history of this town. Not at all. I couldn't understand why the meeting house had been used for town meetings. Had New Hampshire been a theocracy like Connecticut? Not that I had ever heard.
Thinking I was either crazy or dull-witted, John finally read a section of a Wilmot history book aloud to me so that I could figure out what was going on in old Wilmot. I suddenly began to understand that a meeting house is not necessarily a meeting house. I am now beginning to make sense of town history. Finally.
I'm taking nothing for granted now. Language in New Hampshire is more complicated than it is in Vermont. But I'm learning. Soon I'll know three vernaculars: Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire!
This side gear could have been used to run an old tractor. I found this in early December in Wilmot Center at the edge of a field that has the old foundation of the town's first town hall.
In the late fall, we followed the Blackwater River across the road. We found old, abandoned fields and pastures, ancient roads and abandoned bridge abutments. We also found this abandoned spring house built into the side of a small hill for a no longer existing farm house. These spring houses housed spring wells. The stone house was cool in the summer and could keep milk, eggs and butter fresh for a longer period of time than if no spring house had been built. It was a fascinating walk.
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Asclepias syriaca
