The shape of things...

Spring is a wee bit slow this year. Soon the rain will come bringing its coat of green to the forest. It occurred to me that these are the last moments when the forest is at its starkest; its shape and flaws are apparent. Soon I will be distracted by all things green and the underlying beauty will be cloaked from view once again. 

It is a human flaw, or perhaps just a flaw in me, that I harbour an unrealistic expectation, maybe just a hope, that things remain the same in my world. We have lived here for almost 25 years now and nothing in my personal landscape has remained the same; there are welcome additions, mourned losses, and goodness knows that a glance in the mirror shouts that I am changed, so it is foolish of me to expect my surroundings to have remained static.  

It just seems like the forest landscapes are so very changed in the last year or two. The loudest sound that I heard on a section of rail trail the other day, was hammering. The city and county renegotiated boundaries and this has allowed a vast new area to be developed which now leaves only a narrow green band at the edges of the path. So very distressing.

Across that field houses are being built and you can see the blue of the insulation and the plywood of roofing

The number of trees felled by erosion, weather, infestation or age recently seems distressingly large to me. The number of grand old trees in the forest is decreasing and this time of year gives a last moment to properly admire the shape of their canopy and the texture of their bark.

  

Such marvelous variety.

This hemlock shines when the deciduous trees are bare.

The winter is also the time when the beauty of sycamore trees is displayed.

The forest floor that is now so open, will soon be shuttered from view by the green things that are sleeping in the ground and getting ready to waken. They will disguise the fallen logs and the banks of the creeks and soften the appearance of the years damage.

Bank erosion bares the roots of this tree..

and the roots of this tree are now on the surface of this wetland. 

Being the optimist that I am..not, I tend to be distrustful of change, thinking of it almost always, in a negative way. My children, who are more pragmatic, remind me that change is a normal and natural process that is to be expected. My mature response is 'well, I don't have to like it!'. I think that our trees are precious and wish that they were impervious to peril and pestilence.

A man was walking his dog in a conifer section of the forest recently and he had a pole over shoulder, like a 1930's hobo. Our paths intersected a little later, and I saw that he was carrying 2 bags of collected garbage and a tire on his pole over his shoulder. He told me that for the past two years, he had been collecting trash from this section of forest. I thanked him for his work and told him how admirable I thought it was. 

He told me that that this area was a dumping area many years ago when this part of town was not densely settled. At some point the city decided to plant a pine forest in this spot with the goal of harvesting them at a later date. When that time arrived, folks had decided that they were now enjoying the forest as a place to walk and blocked the harvesting of the trees. Good outcome right? Well, except for the fact that these trees have a specific lifespan, and were also planted in a pattern for harvesting so not with a healthy mix of trees for sustainability. So, what is now happening is that the trees are coming of age at the same time, vulnerable to age and pests at the same time, and are now falling like dominoes. This gives a perspective for some of the startling recent changes in this forest tract. You never know who you will meet or what you will learn during a random conversation when you are walking.

The greening of the forest will make many other things less obvious, like

 traces of the railways that passed the borders of farms in this area... or

this red-tailed hawk's nest...

this hidey hole for a napping raccoon...

or this worn stone that marks a judgement about a land border dispute. Fascinating, but nearly invisible once the grasses grow at the road edge.

Today's rain will bring green to the lawns and buds to the trees. The excitement of seeking out new signs of spring will probably assuage this momentary melancholy, but it is a good practice to mark the changing of the season with appreciation for the beauty displayed by each one. Maybe more so when the days seem to pass more swiftly, and on those days when life seems a bit more uncertain.