succession

 I went on a wander the other day. I need to do more of that. But I went on a wander and eventually ended up in a place I used to frequent that had changed, drastically. And it's probably, what? Only 200 feet from the house? But it's on the steep side and it doesn't get wandered very much.

Used to, it was just over the hill from the trailer and offered me a quick and quiet refuge. At least that's how I remember it. Two grandmother pines defined the area, one high and one low. And in between a forest of what I called "fairy pines", more usually known as "ground cedar". You knew, sitting there with those great pines towering not only above you but above the surrounding trees that they were nearing the end of their time. But it was, for that time, a place to be held, quiet and still.

This was it the other day:

The tree that was uprooted on the right was what broke the tree in the middle. That area begins a whole side of the hill that is a woven tapestry of blow downs and it could seem desolate. It is certainly difficult to navigate. There are no fairy pines, at least not that I saw the other day. (They are still in other places.)

But there are plenty of other things! If I had edited this photo a bit to pop the green, all those hundreds of mostly maple seedling on the forest floor would be more obvious. I may well not see much of what happens in this succession but I am fascinated by it. And all those dead trees? Such terrific food for all sorts of things -- fungus and lichens and bugs. So many birds depend on snags to nest in.

I was in the garden today, quiet and still after everyone else had left. And from that hill came a sound like a hammer except deeper, and I tried for awhile to work out in my brain what in the world someone up at the house was working on. Before I figured out is was a woodpecker, likely a big one, working on some tree that was sounding as a drum would -- not just the percussion of beak on bark but amplified. It sounded most like a bass drum.

My kids have remarked on my stillness. One complains how I always hushed them when they were small on the walk to and from the garden so we could all hear all the stuff that was going on around us. My husband has called me a sack of potatoes and a pill bug, and not as an endearment. If I could be as still as a stone, could I watch the eons passing, or at least the succession of the trees?