AUGUST 14, 2020 – In these fraught times, I find peace in things that will survive our troubles. Things like . . . trees, for example.
Here at the Red Cabin, we’re surrounded by thousands of trees, but I’m determined to add thousands more pine—the species that dominated the landscape here for centuries before “progress” arrived.
But . . . should I let nature take her course unaided, untouched by my designs? It’s a fine line to tread. Once human hands intervene, as they did 120 years ago, slashing and trashing everything in sight for a quick buck, do later, restorative hands have license to intervene? I’m not sure, simply driven.
As I expressed in an earlier post on this project, I’m motivated partly by penance for having made a Faustian bargain: selling logging rights in exchange for cash to pay future real estate taxes. The harvest of second growth poplars and hardwoods devasted the landscape. I promised the land—and the memory of my forebears—to work hard to create a “tree garden” across the “back 40” of our family’s property.
Over the past five years, I’ve become deeply acquainted with the soil, topography, and vegetation of this corner of earth. I’m now familiar with growth patterns and other characteristics of various plants—the “desirable” (my pine!), the “undesirable” (noxious weeds), the edible (blueberries), and the inedible (wintergreen berries).
As my dad often observed, life strives irresistibly. The sawyer’s blade, working at my bidding, triggered an explosion of growth. Most remarkable and delightful to me is the irrepressible proliferation of pine seedlings. For each “conscript” that I planted painstakingly with a planter bar, dozens of volunteers have seeded themselves by way of wind through big pine along the lakeshore south of the “back 40.” I’ve surmised that what’s to account for this extraordinary return of pine is the “Faustian” bargain—harvesting the mostly deciduous woods, which for decades had shaded out any chance for pine.
In four short years, the distant future has come into focus. A future in which tall, stolid, sentinel pine are restored to dominance. Long after we and troubles of our day are supplanted by travails of future generations, this “back 40” will be “Eden’s 40”— with its many spires and lookouts catching early morning sunrays and not releasing them until day’s end, year in and year out, across time.
I’m now building a trail network, for which over the winter months, I’ll fashion signs: Björn’s Way (our collie, after whom this Shangri-La); Ragnar’s Ridge (Grandpa Nilsson acquired the land in 1939); Hilda’s Meander (“Ga” (our grandmother), whose memory of Sweden was kept alive by the quiet beauty of this area); Boots Hill (my mother, nicknamed, “Boots”, who loved to paint the scenery here); Fiddler Forest (my sisters and me); Penta-gen Trail (the fifth generation to enjoy this place); and Mt. Raymond (the highest point; named after my dad, from whom I inherited a love for trees).
The signs will fade. The trees will strive—irresistibly.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
