grow trees

In winter, the trees are dormant but they certainly are not quiet. I love to listen to the sounds the large trees make.

A light breeze rattles the few dry leaves still attached to beech trees. Given more wind, the tall evergreens will whisper. Pines are louder than spruces and hemlocks. Willows, with their many flexible twigs, sway and dance. In a storm, the branches make the wind roar, and old trees with double trunks can be heard creaking as they try to bend. Ice storms coat everything, and if the wind blows, there is lots of crackling, like many necklaces of glass beads.

I am the heat of your hearth on cold winter nights,
The friendly shade from the summer sun, and my fruits
are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you
journey on.

I am the beam that holds your house, and the board of
your table. The bed on which you lie, and the timber
that builds your boat.

I am the handle of your hoe. The door of your homestead,
the wood of your cradle and the shell of your coffin.

I am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty.
Ye who pass by, listen to my prayer: Harm me not.

(translated from the Portuguese, written over 1,000 years ago)

Red squirrels usually live in burrows under the roots of the spruce trees, although there have also been several litters raised in the eaves of our house before we rebuilt the eaves. I am sure that the squirrels thought of it as their house. They are very cheeky, and sit on a tree branch overhead, scolding us whenever we walk past.

But the squirrels and I have this much in common: we love the woods, and we plant tree seeds every year. The squirrels make caches of spruce cones, pine cones, and whatever other edible seeds are available. I don’t mind their scolding, because I know that many of the trees that are here now likely sprouted out of a squirrel’s cache.

I have been growing trees from seed for quite a few years, but I consider it a ‘work in progress’, rather than something I have finished doing. I plant the seedlings in our woodlot, to increase the diversity of species, and replace trees that were cut.

Every year there are a few young seedlings that don’t survive their first winter. It’s that way in nature, too. Recently, I was surprised and delighted to find that some seedlings (white ash, yellow birch, and cedar) which I thought had died a few years ago, had somehow survived after all. Several of them are taller than I am!

I have some sugar maples ready to plant out soon. Several people have asked me why I would bother, since there would be no maple syrup from them within my own lifetime. I guess the best answer is that I enjoy the trees that people planted before I was born, so I am just continuing a tradition.