Submitted by Generic_Commenter-X t3_yopaa4 in vermont
There's actually a name for these stones and dammit, I used to know when I was a kid in Vermont and now I can't remember. It's not "field stones", but we used to have a name for them—sort of a local name you'd know if you spent time growing up here.
And while we're on the subject, what other Vermont-specific words do you know? Does anybody call those shriveled up apples still clinging to the tree in December, scrogglings?
New England potatoes?
This is what UConn professor Robert Thorson, who studies stone walls as a nexus of geology and anthropology calls them.
What a fascinating field of study. I'd be curious about the descriptions.
Brush hog sharpener
That’s weird, they just make mine wobble violently.
Awesome!
It’s only vaguely related, but I’ve heard a lone tree on a hill growing along fieldstone rock walls between old property lines called a Witness Tree.
And there's Robert Frost's poetry collection entitled "A Witness Tree".
I’ve also heard “wolf tree” used for a similar concept
I think wolf tree is in the middle of a field not line.
Or any tree that grew in full sunlight. You can tell it’s the oldest tree in a young forest because it’s wide with low branches, as opposed to tall and lanky.
True. I New England where I am it’s cool to find them in the woods and picture how the landscape has changed over the decades.
Glacial erratics?
:) No, no, no... nothing as scientifically precise as that. More of a homegrown term.
"That fucking rock in the middle of the goddamn field"
This guy Vermonts.
I was going to say “rocks”, but this seems more accurate.
Take my upvote.
Slightly less fancy would be "glacial deposit"
Thanks for sharing the term glacial erratics; I knew them as glacial till or glacial rubble.
I thought erratics were truly massive boulders that sometimes end up in unlikely places where they don't resemble the local bedrock, because they were carried by glaciers which eventually melted. But I'm not a geologist nor geotech engineer.
Glacial erratics typically describe large stones deposited by prehistoric glaciers that don’t match native stones in a region. Typically big, cool funky rocks that mere mortals can’t lift with relative ease.
Frost potatoes.
" And while we're on the subject, what other Vermont-specific words do you know?"
Grinders
Creemees
Grinders are a southern and western New England thing. CT, RI, Western MA, VT, mostly.
Grinder is understood in Eastern MA too
And in central Mass too, Worcester definitely has grinders.
Most have lived here 3 years before I realized a creemee was just soft serve ice cream.
No it's a creemee.
So I’ve learned
Queebs Flatlanders Camp (referring to cabin or cottage)
I knew an old guy in Readsboro that used to say “ let’s go catch a deer” during hunting season.
Gilders
Here is a pic that I took last summer of a field with lots of stones. Is this what you mean?
Oh wait! I think I might remember! I think we called them "fieldlings".
That does have a nice touch of poetry to it!
I've definitely heard "fieldlings"!
Yes. We had a name for them. Haven't seen it yet. It was something like calling them gnomes—a really beautiful name.
Post-modern deconstructed stone wall.
I read "devils teeth" somewhere, maybe an Eric Sloane book
Baby Heads when they are on the Mountain Bike trails
Malloys
Neverending
Anklebreakers?
Field stones
There’s a term in geology that literally translates to field stone: feldspar. Doesn’t answer this question but I think it’s interesting.
We called them Connecticut potatoes
we just called them field stones
[deleted]
Obstacles.
Potatoes
Only here to ask where in Vermont! Ex-Proctor here! I love VT. KY is very similar in some ways, except KY doesn't seeth in anger when you say you weren't born in KY, lol
>except KY doesn't seeth in anger when you say you weren't born in KY, lol
I was born in CA and moved to VT when I was ONE MONTH old. Kids in school called me a flatlander. Commie bastards.
In Georgia I was called a Yankee for being born in Atlanta. Folks everywhere are weird.
In 1970, I spent a summer in Augusta. And I heard that soooo many times! I go to 7-11 and ask for a slushy, and instead of "sure" or "what flavor" or something like that, it was a stoic, "y'all a Yankee" lol, real life southern gothic.
Augusta!! I was just there… and it’s still like that ♥️
Nice! Me too! I stayed in that old haunted hotel called the Partridge Inn on Walton. Really a cool place! They were a little more low-key with the Yankee hatin' this time around, lol
Legit obit of someone lived to 98 yo. Had moved to VT as a 2 mo old. “Although not a native…”
lol, I knew it! I heard that 5 times a day. There is a purity test not too many people can pass.
Proctor! My roots go deep as the quarries there.
My father is from Proctor. Mother from Rutland. I’m made of stone.
Miros
Romanovs_Penguin t1_ivfer9n wrote
My grandpa was a dairy farmer. He always called them "rocks".