Without our trees, we
can not live on the land. We should learn from the Vikings, who in the 9th
century settled in Iceland, and within 300 years, destroyed all their
trees. No more trees means no heat, no cooking… and thus, the end of that
civilization there. They actually starved themselves out of a once rich
and forested land. I know this is a pretty harsh picture to paint of the
mismanagement that can occur with woodlots, but it’s a good one to get the
point across. At the very least, we can use this knowledge to remind us
to value the trees we do have, and to manage them for the future wisely.
I’m no historian,
though these facts are readily available on the internet. I’m a
homesteader, that’s where my focus here should be… on our mountain, on our
trees.
I live the mountains,
homestead in the mountains. Here, as with all homesteads, we
are closer to life, closer to death. It is all around us, every day, a
part of our breath, the beat of our heart, the view before us, the ground
below our feet. The trees are an integral part of our homestead, even
here on our mountain that we call home, up at an elevation of nearly
10,000 and surrounded by forests. Still, every tree is valued. And for
good reason. Our life here, from our home to our heating to our cooking
and more, is all dependant upon our trees. I don’t want to just take, and
leave my son and his children having to look further every year for
harvestable timber. Instead, for every tree we take, we plant a tree to
give back to the land, to give to our children, and to give to the future
of our mountain. I know this can sound a bit sappy, but think about it.
I’m just being a homesteader.
It all comes together
on a homestead. It’s that big circle of life, played out every day. With
the seasons, the garden and livestock we raise, the work we do to survive,
and the trees. We give, we take, we balance out on a homestead. And
somewhere in that mix, everything all seems to come together. The
animals, the seasons, the trees… we can not separate one from all the rest
on a homestead, can we?
Yesterday, a filly
was found dead. A two year old horse. Where is the “right” in this? We
do not judge. We have to accept, learn, move on, do better. At the same
day, we began to build a new foaling shed for our mare, Tres, who is due
in about a month’s time. This is what life is about on a homestead. As
you mourn the loss of one, you prepare for the birth of another. One tree
falls, another grows in its wake.
We
were gathering materials from the junk piles; my husband, Bob, dragging
them by snowmobile and stacking them on the snow in place where we will be
building the foaling shed. But we couldn’t build the shed under the
threat of this huge Blue Spruce falling on it, and that tree was on its
way down. I have been watching the roots inch their way out of the ground
over the past month or so, able to notice this as my archery target was
leaning against the base of the tree, so I’d actually see the difference
each week as I practiced with my long bow. The past week was the worse,
with the roots popping up above the ground, exposing fresh dirt underneath
daily. The tree was going soon. If we let it fell on its own, we risked
the possibility of it falling on our new shed. At the least, it could
damage two good trees next to it, or get caught up in them and be a real
hazard. The lean of the tree
was so extreme that it seemed the most direct path was into the trees, but
altering its fall could also land the giant tree on top of two tiny
Spruce, each no more that a few years old, just
popping above the snow level. These trees are precious to us; life is
hard enough up here.
Bob felled the big
tree just right, clearing the
neighboring trees and missing by inches the baby Spruce that will grow in
place of the old big one. The three of us worked together to clean up the
branches, sorting some for a burn pile, others saved aside for small
crafts projects.
Then
Bob bucked the tree into lengths, and we found ourselves with three good
sized logs. These will be the start of a new log wall for making our cozy
little homestead cabin just a little bit bigger.
And now we can go
back to building that foaling shed for Tres. See how it all just comes
together sometimes? Planning for the future, helping us live in the
present, healing us of the past. In our sadness, we still have to work to
be done; we have a new foal on the way. It may not be a cure, but it is
an understanding, and then it all just becomes part of life, not good or
bad, but just what it is, the way it has to be. All the pieces to the
puzzle fit together. And despite the areas of darkness and sharp edges,
the puzzle before us shows us a picture of a very beautiful world.
