MAY 18, 2021 – Surrounded yesterday by Mother Nature, I found her more compelling subject than yet more consequences of Republicans drinking too much Kook Aid.
An email at 10:06 a.m. told me my order of seedlings had been delivered. I’d been on a biz call while sitting inside the front of the Red Cabin when the FedEx truck had driven furtively down our narrow drive for the drop-off. After the call, I zipped to the back porch to find the package.
Wrapped carefully and with roots surrounded by moist sphagnum moss, were two bundles of 24 paper birch and 24 Canadian hemlock, bare-root seedlings. I’d missed the DNR’s order deadline several months ago, and . . . voila! . . . the internet miraculously stepped in with a pop-up ad featuring Chief River Nursery Company (“Since 1973”) located on Lake Michigan, 20 miles north of Milwaukee. Ad-resistant though I am, I fell immediately for the solicitation.
America is nothing if it isn’t the land of marketing mastery. But sometimes it’s for a good cause, such as counteracting destruction of the planet by consumption advocated by . . . advertising. (Note: I’d previously planted hundreds of white pine seedlings and cultivated red pine (along with hundreds more white pine) “volunteers.” My wife is partial toward paper birch, however, and I wanted to introduce wily hemlocks to our woods—this having once been part of their natural range. Thus, my online purchase wasn’t exactly impulsive.)
The instructions said to soak the roots for “6 to 8 hours.” This detail threw a stick into my plans. I’d have to defer planting until 5 p.m. Knowing how time-consuming a task it would be to get 48 seedlings into the ground, I knew I’d be planting well into dusk—and among mosquitoes.
I caught myself—being a typically short-sighted human. Weren’t these trees for the distant future? Wouldn’t they survive me—if all goes well—by multiple decades? Won’t they help in some small way to cool the planet in the meantime? I quickly pruned my myopic concerns—mosquitoes and a deferred evening repast.
In fact, I imitated squirrels and planned ahead: I gathered my tools—wheel barrow, paint stick (to tease roots into the planting holes), pruning shears and hand-held clippers (to clear around the plantings), and my dad’s old but ever so good planting bar—and tossed in gloves and planting stakes. I unwrapped the seedling bundles and as prescribed, placed them in a shaded bucket of water. At the appointed time, I’d be ready for action.
The work was arduous but even its immediate rewards will be long remembered. While putting a hemlock into the soil near the lakeshore, I heard a pair of nearby loons. Their haunting calls echoed just as they do in nature films. I turned to look out between two sentinel pine. The loons were a stone’s throw from shore, swimming gloriously in the bright rays of the setting sun.
Mother Nature. May she outlive us all.
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
