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| A Moore granddaughter frolics in the trees, just as Rose did years ago when she was young. |
April is Earth Month. And what on EARTH do I love more than TREES?
I admit, trees do present us humans with some problems. They toss their leaves and seeds into our rain gutters... With Mother Nature's constant storm-bred "pruning," their branches sometimes litter up our lawns and porches or deprive our homes of power... Their roots will sometimes wander where we think they shouldn't, heaving pavement and clogging drains...
Trees have also often tried to slap me off my tractor with their branches as I mow... A mammoth wild cherry tree outside my door plays host to feasting birds who leave their after-dinner droppings on my walk... The cottonwoods in early summer distribute "fuzzies"--snowing on my lawns, sticking to my screens, planting trees in all my gardens...
In June, the locust trees in bloom attack my sinuses... In autumn, the chores surrounding falling leaves seem endless, and the sycamores and tulip trees drop fruit and sheets of bark and giant leaves...
But yes! I love the trees; I truly do!
I love the very NAMES of trees. Sycamore and sassafras and tupelo... ironwood and hornbeam... magnolia, dogwood, osage orange and beechnut... butternut and buckthorn... black gum, slippery elm, thornapple, quaking aspen, pignut hickory, harp-leafed willow, speckled alder...
I love the SOUND of trees as well; they seem to have a voice. A tree provides the instrument for the staccato drumming of a woodpecker, and sets a summer stage for songbirds... A pine tree's branches swish and whisper in the wind... The dancing leaves of aspen in the summer rustle cheerfully as wind chimes... Trees creak and squawk as branches cross each other in November winds... Old trees howl in bitter gales and snap-pop in the coldest depths of winter... The winter hemlock rings like sounded crystal as it shrugs the glass-like shards of winter ice from off its branches...
I love the SKINS and FORMS of trees... the bark of sycamore, mottled in the summer and smoothly bleached in winter... the "shingled" texture of the shagbark hickory... the warty worm-trail surface of the hackberry... the twisty, gnarled shape of vintage apple trees... the towering pyramid of tulip poplar, topped with leaves as large as human faces... the branches of a weeping willow on a torrid August night, lined and lit with fireflies... and leafy treetops sweeping stormy summer skies like giant brooms...
I HAVE NOT COME LATE TO this appreciation for the large perennial plant we call the tree. I was a city child when our towns were filled with trees, and trees adorn my memories.
We city kids knew which trees were best for climbing, and which would give the best support for tire-swings. We pulled "Indian cigars" from off catalpa trees and pretended we were smoking peace pipes. We collected buckeyes from majestic buckeye trees, so gloriously plentiful before they were declared a pest and done away with...
Tarzan-like, we swung from sturdy grapevines in a big tree far behind our house. A mulberry tree became our side-yard jungle gym, and my favorite spot for summer reading was in the spreading arms of an imposing maple tree that shaded our front porch...
And now I live inside a home that's tucked among the trees; they grow close around me, like a tree house.
It took me just awhile to appreciate the unkempt nature of this creek-fed valley woodland. But then I found that weathered trees and logs, stricken down by nature's hand, could serve some worthy purposes. They could be a home for wildlife; a decaying nourishment for the forest; a spot for me to sit and contemplate; a bench for man and wife to rest upon while walking in the woodland...
WHEN FIRST WE SETTLED in this place, I stewed about a driftwood-polished locust snag outside our bedroom window. "Take it down," I begged my husband. Country-born and reared, he told me firmly that the snag would fall when it was ready--and then would fall AWAY from us into the woods.
For a time, I woke each morning and eyed the dead tree apprehensively. Soon I noted the offending snag was a cafeteria for birds that ate a lot of pesky bugs; and it served as an apartment house for little mammals.
I watched as moonlight spread its honey on the surface of the snag, and sunlight moved along its silken trunk in endless patterns. The snag was now a work of art my eyes took pleasure in. I surprised myself when I wrote in my journal that I, too, now wanted it to stand.
But in a deep-snow winter in 1996, the snag fell quietly upon the forest floor, exactly where my husband always said it would. It disintegrated slowly, mixing with the leaves and soil on the forest floor and becoming part of nature.
I missed the comfort of its presence at my bedroom window. But its loss did open up a space for other trees and shrubs that drew many birds we hadn't seen before. They nested, sang and flittered there among the branches. Every morning through our bedroom windows, we could wake up to the lively sight and sound of all those birds that seemed to be performing solely for our eyes and ears.
That's just another reason, among many, that I love living in my valley among among all sorts of trees.
AFTER-NOTE: April also features Arbor Day, which in Ohio is celebrated on the last Friday of April. The national observance was founded in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton, an early news person who loved trees as much as I do. When he and his wife moved into Nebraska, they quickly joined a state-wide movement to plant that prairie state with trees. In 1882, Morton's Arbor Day spread nationally as a tradition in our schools.
I admit, trees do present us humans with some problems. They toss their leaves and seeds into our rain gutters... With Mother Nature's constant storm-bred "pruning," their branches sometimes litter up our lawns and porches or deprive our homes of power... Their roots will sometimes wander where we think they shouldn't, heaving pavement and clogging drains...
Trees have also often tried to slap me off my tractor with their branches as I mow... A mammoth wild cherry tree outside my door plays host to feasting birds who leave their after-dinner droppings on my walk... The cottonwoods in early summer distribute "fuzzies"--snowing on my lawns, sticking to my screens, planting trees in all my gardens...
In June, the locust trees in bloom attack my sinuses... In autumn, the chores surrounding falling leaves seem endless, and the sycamores and tulip trees drop fruit and sheets of bark and giant leaves...
But yes! I love the trees; I truly do!
I love the very NAMES of trees. Sycamore and sassafras and tupelo... ironwood and hornbeam... magnolia, dogwood, osage orange and beechnut... butternut and buckthorn... black gum, slippery elm, thornapple, quaking aspen, pignut hickory, harp-leafed willow, speckled alder...
I love the SOUND of trees as well; they seem to have a voice. A tree provides the instrument for the staccato drumming of a woodpecker, and sets a summer stage for songbirds... A pine tree's branches swish and whisper in the wind... The dancing leaves of aspen in the summer rustle cheerfully as wind chimes... Trees creak and squawk as branches cross each other in November winds... Old trees howl in bitter gales and snap-pop in the coldest depths of winter... The winter hemlock rings like sounded crystal as it shrugs the glass-like shards of winter ice from off its branches...
I love the SKINS and FORMS of trees... the bark of sycamore, mottled in the summer and smoothly bleached in winter... the "shingled" texture of the shagbark hickory... the warty worm-trail surface of the hackberry... the twisty, gnarled shape of vintage apple trees... the towering pyramid of tulip poplar, topped with leaves as large as human faces... the branches of a weeping willow on a torrid August night, lined and lit with fireflies... and leafy treetops sweeping stormy summer skies like giant brooms...
I HAVE NOT COME LATE TO this appreciation for the large perennial plant we call the tree. I was a city child when our towns were filled with trees, and trees adorn my memories.
We city kids knew which trees were best for climbing, and which would give the best support for tire-swings. We pulled "Indian cigars" from off catalpa trees and pretended we were smoking peace pipes. We collected buckeyes from majestic buckeye trees, so gloriously plentiful before they were declared a pest and done away with...
Tarzan-like, we swung from sturdy grapevines in a big tree far behind our house. A mulberry tree became our side-yard jungle gym, and my favorite spot for summer reading was in the spreading arms of an imposing maple tree that shaded our front porch...
And now I live inside a home that's tucked among the trees; they grow close around me, like a tree house.
It took me just awhile to appreciate the unkempt nature of this creek-fed valley woodland. But then I found that weathered trees and logs, stricken down by nature's hand, could serve some worthy purposes. They could be a home for wildlife; a decaying nourishment for the forest; a spot for me to sit and contemplate; a bench for man and wife to rest upon while walking in the woodland...
WHEN FIRST WE SETTLED in this place, I stewed about a driftwood-polished locust snag outside our bedroom window. "Take it down," I begged my husband. Country-born and reared, he told me firmly that the snag would fall when it was ready--and then would fall AWAY from us into the woods.
For a time, I woke each morning and eyed the dead tree apprehensively. Soon I noted the offending snag was a cafeteria for birds that ate a lot of pesky bugs; and it served as an apartment house for little mammals.
I watched as moonlight spread its honey on the surface of the snag, and sunlight moved along its silken trunk in endless patterns. The snag was now a work of art my eyes took pleasure in. I surprised myself when I wrote in my journal that I, too, now wanted it to stand.
But in a deep-snow winter in 1996, the snag fell quietly upon the forest floor, exactly where my husband always said it would. It disintegrated slowly, mixing with the leaves and soil on the forest floor and becoming part of nature.
I missed the comfort of its presence at my bedroom window. But its loss did open up a space for other trees and shrubs that drew many birds we hadn't seen before. They nested, sang and flittered there among the branches. Every morning through our bedroom windows, we could wake up to the lively sight and sound of all those birds that seemed to be performing solely for our eyes and ears.
That's just another reason, among many, that I love living in my valley among among all sorts of trees.
AFTER-NOTE: April also features Arbor Day, which in Ohio is celebrated on the last Friday of April. The national observance was founded in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton, an early news person who loved trees as much as I do. When he and his wife moved into Nebraska, they quickly joined a state-wide movement to plant that prairie state with trees. In 1882, Morton's Arbor Day spread nationally as a tradition in our schools.
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| Sycamore against the winter sky above my house |
