“A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children.”
John James Audubon
Lilly and I wandered away from the house, down the hill past the fenced horse pasture, and strolled towards the remaining snow patches in “my hundred acre woods.”
To my left, beyond the aging row of Eastern Cedars (pics above) pouts a failed one acre lake with volunteer ash, willow, and water maple sprouting along its receding edge. After Spring rains, ruckus tree frogs peep and bull frogs croak boisterously about the lake’s swollen size and beauty. As the summer sun evaporates the pond, its muddy edges imprint with wild critter’s tracks.. The frogs have been replaced by legions of dragonflies whipping about, harvesting mosquitoes. They seek shelter when flycatchers, swallows, kingfishers swope in on the scene,
The four seasons return year after year but the actors don’t. Lilly enjoyed her last Christmas and sleeps in dog heaven. I wander the farm with her shadow by my side.
The black fence boards are weathered and warped in spots, dotted with a gray lichen and tufts of moss (pic above). In several spots the deer have rutted the sod underneath by squeezing under the lowest rail. When the fence was new and I much younger, my boys and I gamely walked the top rail down to the woods (pic below).
. The six inch posts were a safe haven to rest and regain balance. We needed three rapid steps on the top rail before reaching the next post. After falling, you would return to the back of the Sewell conga line. Down to the forest we tight walked, with the pines echoing our laughing and howling. We implored Mother Nature to blow the fence leader off the rail.
The fence line and I have weathered thirty seasons. Oak boards weaken and warped boards need to be hammered back to the post (pic above). The kids have fledged and Lilly doesn’t bark.The pines are lovely, dark and deep but don’t echo tiny voices. I repeat Paul Simon’s lyrics, “How terribly strange to be seventy.” Winter is coming.
As the pasture ends and the wood lot begins, the soil thins and limestone outcroppings are exposed. (pics above) Large stones have tumbled thirty feet down the escarpment. A mature walnut tree trumpets from the base of the waterfall. Today , with the winter solstice approaching, the falling waters drip not roar. The rivulet below will empty into the West Fork of Cox’s Creek. After eons of rainstorms, ice, and snow melt, the water has eroded the valley in front of me a hundred yards wide and a quarter mile long. This negative space, devoid of of limestone grows oak, hickory, cedar, pine, and ash trees.
The waterfall faces North and so the shaded icicles can remain weeks after the spring thaw (pic above). Large limestone boulders are in the process of breaking way from the upland while others have fallen into the valley below (pic above). At the base of this rock fall, the water lingers in small pools, dammed by leaf litter, stones and small pebbles. Fossils and geodes mix with discarded walnut and pignut hickory shells. The water meanders in several directions, cascades over a protruding limestone slab and pool once again. Dry leaves will swirl like rudderless ships until they become saturated and join their brethren at the pool’s base. Crawdads and darter fish lurk about the sunken camophage.
This post is not to despair at winter but revel in the ever evolving Earth. For a century. I get to see, smell and taste the relationship between the Earth’s geosphere and biosphere. In the “greatest story ever told,” Earth’s inert ingredients achieve mortality and return back to dust. With the carbon cycle, plant chlorophyll converts light, carbon dioxide, and water into sugar.. Plant roots with fungi assistance convert rocks into clays. The animal kingdom inherit and prosper from the crust of the earth. We inhale inert O2, form living hydrocarbons, and exhale inert CO2. I’m happy to be an actor in the “greatest story ever told.” No one can outrun the history train, but not all critters who wander are lost. So when a friend asks you to help carry some of his load, see if you can’t “get to YES.”
If that’s not nice, I don’t what is.