A Walk Down Back

Last week, before the 80 degree days completely melted the snow, I took my camera out back into the small stand of mostly white pine trees to see what I could see. I also wanted to look for chaga growing on the birches and perhaps more pine resin as it makes a wonderful healing salve (and sometimes I open the jar simply to enjoy its clean, piney fragrance). The snow was gone where the sun had reached the leaf covered ground and as I crunched along, amazed at how perfectly beautiful even the dead leaves were, seemingly positioned by an artist’s hand just-so. I found a beautiful quartz and granite boulder covered with various mosses, some deer prints spreading in the melting snow, skunk and bear scat (yup, time to bring in the bird feeders, at night at least), a red corn cob minus its kernels, the remnants of someone’s feast, green ferns, wintergreen and partridge berry, and an old rusted tractor along with wagon wheels, left decades ago on the property line to rot.
 

I found “Daddy sign” too, reminders that my father had walked these same woods many times before I moved here. There on the ground at the foot of an exceptionally large white pine sat our old mailbox with MEEKER painted on the side. I remember when I first moved here, and Daddy was still alive, that mailbox had been positioned in the tree, its door open and welcoming, offering shelter to various forest critters. Elsewhere, there were bird houses he had placed in various trees, probably in remembrance of my mother who loved birds.
    

There were lots of dead and dying birches (and yes, I did find chaga but it was too high up for me to reach), many more than I remember. Birches aren’t an especially long-lived tree and they can’t compete with the white pines for sun since they don’t grow as tall. But I hadn’t expected to find so many broken trunks, snapped several feet above ground, or even unbroken but obviously dead. Victims of too much rain and many high winds, perhaps tropical storm Irene last fall? Unfortunately, a few years ago the land next door was completely clearcut right up to our property line leaving our stand of trees to fend for themselves, no longer part of a larger forest community. But there is beauty even in a dead tree, especially the birches with their beautiful white bark and shelf fungi. All the fallen limbs did make for difficult walking however.

Making my way back, I found some pine resin and gratefully gathered a bit of it, relishing its scent and stickiness on my fingers. I never cease to be amazed at the girth of many of the trees on my land. Huge ancient gnarly maples on the property line and numerous mammoth white pines, not as old as the maples because they grow faster, but very old still. I loved them from the beginning, as did my father, who chose this house mainly for the numerous old trees and the beautiful views of his favorite mountains.

Snow still covered the beds of my garden and the gate couldn’t be opened yet because of it, so I walked around the perimeter sending good vibes to the still slumbering plants. Greeting the ancient crab apple tree, I noted that the trunk cavity has gotten much larger since last summer and I wonder how the tree manages to survive despite it. How many more years will we be graced with this tree’s fragrant blossoms and sweet/tart crab apples? When I first moved here it had many more branches than it does now. Each year it loses a branch or more to winds or snow or heavy rain storms. I see a baby crab apple growing from the ground seemingly coming out of the old trunk, the next generation taking root in nature’s cycle of life, death, and rebirth. I am here, now, in this beautiful place. Safe in this moment. I can ask for nothing more.