Make friends with a tree? #phenology

We need the rain we're getting. By the sounds of it, it makes the frogs happy. The "wet spot" in the back yard is refilling with water. For the first time since snow melt there's a puddle in the driveway. It's outlined by golden yellow pine pollen.

puddle outlined in pine pollen

Photo by J. Harrington

We are looking forward to this wet spell breaking. Watching the outdoors from inside the house is not as much fun as actually being outdoors. We came across on online magazine that may be of interest to some of you. It's emergence magazine. One article from their "practice" section is about "Befriending a Tree," in the author's case, a pin oak. Our initial response was to think of the times we've spent sitting/standing in trees in Vermont, New Hampshire and Minnesota, waiting (unsuccessfully) for a hapless deer to wander by. Then we started to wonder about the burr oak near the end of our drive. This Spring it doesn't seem to have leafed out as robustly as prior years. That tree was fully grown when we bought the house a quarter century ago. We hope it stays healthy for years to come. The rains seem to have enhanced leaf growth so, for now, we'll just watch and see about befriending it, per Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder's guidance. It's one of several species of oak we have growing around here.

burr oak leaves

Photo by J. Harrington

We've slowly been working our way through The Hidden Life of Trees. It's full of truly astounding information, much of which appears to be directly relevant to our increasing need to find better ways to live together. Since the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is now, we suppose the same can be said about the best times to learn about and befriend trees. Our somewhat guilty conscience is assuaged somewhat when we take into account that much of the information we find so fascinating today wasn't readily available 20 years ago.

All-in-all we're starting to realize just how much of a nature deficit disorder we ourselves have accrued and, even if it doesn't stop raining, plan to do something to minimize our deficit. That's also give us more to post about.

Learning the Trees

By Howard Nemerov

Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn

The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,

Out of a book, which now you think of it

Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,

You might be in a foreign land of terms

Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,

Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

But best of all are the words that shape the leaves—

Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform—

And their venation—palmate and parallel—

And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate.

Sufficiently provided, you may now

Go forth to the forests and the shady streets

To see how the chaos of experience

Answers to catalogue and category.

Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree

May differ among themselves more than they do

From other species, so you have to find,

All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”

Example, the catalpa in the book

Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three

Around the stem; the one in front of you

But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;

Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.

It may be weeks before you see an elm

Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,

A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.

Still, pedetemtimas Lucretius says,

Little by little, you do start to learn;

And learn as well, maybe, what language does

And how it does it, cutting across the world

Not always at the joints, competing with

Experience while cooperating with

Experience, and keeping an obstinate

Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.

Think finally about the secret will

Pretending obedience to Nature, but

Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,

Dividing up the world to conquer it,

And think also how funny knowledge is:

You may succeed in learning many trees

And calling off their names as you go by,

But their comprehensive silence stays the same.

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