Lament For A Forest

I walk each day in my beloved forest which sits on crown land joining ours. There are hectares of land in there where birds frolic, and mice and squirrels gather, where bears rummage, and foxes are furtive, where coyotes howl, and owls peer, but most of all it is a place where things grow. Always, the forest is full of shadows and green moisture, where rot and decay are good things, where moss is thick and spongy and a falling leaf or a buzzing insect is significant. It's a quiet place, a place where all things are gentle. In another life maybe I was a biologist. I love to get on my hands and knees and look under things in the forest. I love to lift a leaf and look at its back side. I like to pull up the moss and see the insects living beneath it. Sometime I will even sit on a stump and take off my shoes and feel the rich loam between my toes. The forest to me is life.
Yesterday, I went for a walk in the evening with Teapot and Jiggs and Tootsie the wonder chicken herder. It was a nice walk and I had remembered to take my camera along for the ride. I have been through there quite a bit in the last few days since Jiggs demands daily (and preferably hourly!!) walks. The forest floor is teaming with Prairie Crocuses right now and I have been meaning for several days to go and take some pictures of them. Last night I finally did that. They are beautiful with their soft coating of down. A little further along the trail there were tiny wee Violets beginning to bloom. I stopped for pictures again. Then I saw some Pussy Paws and took pictures of them too before moving on to a yellow flower that looks like some kind of grass.
It was while I was on my knees looking at the new blooms that I realized there was a problem. I looked all around me and realized the forest wasn't breathing or if it was, it was breathing very shallowly. No luscious foliage, no rich loam, and at a time of the year when everything should be bursting with life, somethings are not growing at all.

All around me had a dry brown look. I looked at Pine tree after Pine tree, at the decimation of all those majestic trees by the Pine Bark Beetle. Sometimes it is easy to look at the chartreuse green of the new leaves and feel that everything is ok. But it is not. Under all the dead leaves of last fall are dead Pine pins and where the sun would normally have a hard time filtering through, are streams of sunlight that are whisking away moisture at an unforeseen rate. It is fast becoming a waste land. soon the soft green light of the forest will become the harsh bright light of a pasture. I will miss the cool darkness and the soft light and quiet of the world beneath the canopy.

along with the obvious signs of forest death come the other more subtle deaths that we do not necessarily think about. For a few year I have been fascinated with the flowers that grow in our forest. The Prairie Crocuses are in their hay day right now. The Violets are coming. June is the time for the Wild Roses and the beautiful Orchids of all kinds that grow so quietly in rich loamy soil. There are flowers that I have not yet even identified... what about them? It is not just the Pine trees in the forest that the Pine Beetle is killing it is the lifeblood of so many species. And it is hard to watch.

In August they will come. The machines and the buzzing the axes and saws. The men with their heavy boots and the machines with their tracks will come and kill my friend the forest. I can do nothing to stop it, and probably I shouldn't try. The devastation of the Pine Beetle must, like a cancer be cut out. It is the only way to salvage anything but how can delicate flower petals survive the onslaught of boots and tracks?

There have been men in the forest. they are tying ribbons to trees and marking them with paint. I have been watching to see what they are doing and where they are marking because as luck should have it the people who are doing the tree cutting are trying their best to salvage what they can. There are areas where spruce live, there are areas where poplar live that will not be forested at all, and while this is a good thing I still wonder if the forest will ever come back. Will I still be able to find the pleasure of a cool morning walk with my dog on the trails. Will the breath of the forest be sucked dry. I take pictures of the things that give me joy, the flowers of the forest floor the trees which have become my friends. And I wonder.....