trees Archives - Page 5 of 7

Tree Stories of Our Lives

April 29, 2016 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

I’m planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots. –Andrea Koehle Jones from “The Wish Trees”

The weeping willow tree was a magical fort in the corner of our yard. The wispy walls hid us in the cool shade on hot summer days on the farm, and yet, with no trouble at all, we could burst through the ‘walls’ to the sunshine. It was one of my favorite things about the South Dakota farm (along with the animals) when I was a young child. Forty-five years later when I went back to see my first home, the magnificent weeping willow tree still stood in the corner of the yard.

Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. –Franklin D. Roosevelt

I spent my school-age years in the tree-populated foothills of the Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania. Our yard was scattered with old fruit trees–sour cherry, apple and pear. A tire swing hung from the apple tree where I would sit and ponder all the things a child needs to ponder. The woods behind our house was a wilderness of maple and sassafras trees, large boulders, a small creek, and plenty of poison ivy, but it was the perfect place for trails, forts, games, and pure air to fill our lungs and power our legs.

Then one day the boy came to the tree and the tree said, “Come, Boy, come and climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and eat apples and play in my shade and be happy.” –Shel Silverstein from “The Giving Tree”

A huge, old Elm tree stood between our yard and hay-field on our Missouri acreage. It was the chosen spot, the perfect place for a tree house for our three young ones. It was large and secure, yet so high up that it felt like you could touch the sky, sing with the birds, and dance with the wind.

Trees are sanctuaries. –Hermann Hesse

Cottonwood trees are giants of the prairie. I was in graduate school back in South Dakota when I discovered an ancient old Cottonwood in a park where I would walk to clear my head. From the road it just looked like ‘one of the park trees,’ but when I stood beside it, underneath it, I felt like I was in the presence of the Great Spirit. The bark was deeply grooved and corky, and the roots that fanned out from the gigantic trunk, like spokes on a wheel, were as large as other trees. At a certain time of the year, the cotton, containing the seed, would fall and glide and float away on the wind. I would often stand with my back against the trunk thinking about all the history that had passed by this tree, all the storms that had pounded its branches, all the July festival-goers who had taken shelter under its shade, and all the seasons of harsh cold, gentle rains, singing summer leaves, and brilliant yellow foliage.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Back to this time and this place to the Old Beauty of an Oak tree that rises tall outside our bedroom window. It is one of many oaks around us that produces acorns. With a little help from Chris to keep the rabbits at bay, the acorns sprout into seedlings, who grow ever so slowly into saplings and ever so slowly into young trees…one day to be a sprawling Old Beauty.

I would guess that most people have tree stories from their life’s journey. My childhood with trees brings back happy memories of play, imagination, and agility. We were living, breathing companions, sharing oxygen and carbon dioxide, stability and freedom, and growth. Then I married a ‘tree man,’ who even before I met him thirty-six years ago had already planted more trees than most people do in a lifetime. Together we love, care for, and appreciate trees. When our three children were growing up, trees were an integral part of their lives, and I know they have tree stories of their own. And that ancient Cottonwood in the park–it gave me strength, perspective, and wisdom at a time in my life when everything else seemed to be falling away. The seeds of our lives and the seeds of their lives–living together, not taking the gifts for granted, never underestimating the mutual need–all of us growing to become Old Beauty.

Our Spaceship Earth on Earth Day

April 22, 2016 by Denise Brake 1 Comment

Spaceship Earth is a term popularized in the 1960’s, particularly by architect-inventor-system theorist R. Buckminster Fuller when he wrote the book “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.” The inventor of the geodesic dome relates Earth to a spaceship that has finite resources that cannot be resupplied. He spent much of his life researching and developing designs and strategies to help us sustainably exist on Earth.

Another forward thinker Marshall McLuhan, who predicted the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented, is quoted, “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”

Last Sunday Chris and I checked on the eagle nests–yes, we have babies! One nest has three, fuzzy-feathered eaglets, and the other nest has at least one that I was able to see.

The bluebirds were nesting nearby, and a ground squirrel slunk through the grass trying not to be seen.

We then drove to St. John’s Arboretum and hiked the Boardwalk Loop through prairie, wetland, maple forest, oak savannah, and conifer forest. In a short 1.5 miles, it was a lesson in ecosystems and a glimpse into the diversity of animal and plant life in a tiny part of spaceship earth. A beaver lodge rose from a blue lake on one side of the road. There was a path through the cattails and up the bank for the beaver to get to the lake on the other side.

Red-winged blackbirds sang from their perches on cattails.

The delicious scent of the pine forest filled our noses with the smell of contentment.

We crossed the boardwalk over the wetland…

and saw geese, ducks, and a pair of Trumpeter swans.

Painted turtles sunned themselves in the warm spring sunshine.

Maple trees with red and lime green blossoms contrasted with the deep green of the pines.

The woodland trail through the tall maples still looked like late winter…

…until we saw the Spring Ephemerals! These early blooming flowers take advantage of the small window of sunshine between snow melt and when the trees have leafed out. They grow, flower, are pollinated, and produce seeds in a short period of time and often go dormant by summer. We found Spring Beauty…

…False Rue Anemone…

…and Hepatica bursting through the leaf cover.

Two short walks less than ten miles from one another, and we were blessed to see such an array of plant and animal life that was once again coming to life in the Minnesota Spring. In honor of all these amazing creations, I would like to urge everyone to take good care of our Spaceship Earth. We are all crew members with tasks to do and responsibilities to carry out, even if it’s only in our tiny part of this big, blue planet. Happy Earth Day!

Snow Light

December 17, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

I could tell as soon as I opened my eyes–even though only the slightest hint of light was making itself seen in the cloudy, misty morning. It had snowed! Snow light is that magical, reflected light that changes how one sees from the inside!

The east wind–usually the bearer of rain or snow–had plastered the wet snow on the east side of the trees.

The snow highlighted the strong, arm-like branches of the oak trees, showing a picture of them that cannot be seen in the other seasons.

The sedum wore snow caps of white as the snow continued to fall.

Snow light reaches into the house in a different way than sunlight. It reflects off the ceiling, off the glass of picture frames, and from the glass doors of the old pie safe cupboard.

It does not create shadows like a ray of bright sunshine. It causes a glow that warms the house with happiness–like snow days for kids, like hot chocolate after building a snowman, like a fire in the fireplace. And we begin to see differently.

Is it a photograph or a pencil drawing?

Snow light is the magical reflection of light off snow. It doesn’t change the way we look at things, which implies a conscious action on our part, but it changes the way we see.

I had a brief written conversation recently with a person I don’t often see–some questions, their opinion, their honest view of a situation–and it was a new light reaching into my heart. That person’s honest reflection made me see things in a different way. I hope that all of us can see and be seen in a different light, in a way that cannot be seen at another time, and with a glow that warms our heart with understanding.

Working at Living

September 7, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

When we stepped into September, we entered the meteorological season of Fall. We are most familiar with the traditional astronomical seasons that change at the equinoxes and solstices based on the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun. Meteorological seasons change every three months and are based on similar temperatures. This different and more natural way of defining seasons began in the early to mid 1900’s, making it easier for the weather scientists to compare data and weather patterns.

It is beginning to look like Fall in central Minnesota! The poplar and ash leaves are turning yellow and falling to the ground.

Wild plum trees and creeping poison ivy are displaying beautiful autumnal colors.

Wild grapes are ready for harvesting–by humans, birds, foxes, turkeys–whoever gets to them first.

Asters and sunflowers are blooming in the ditches…

along with abundant goldenrod.

The insects and animals are busy gathering food. The squirrels have been working hard from morning til night, collecting acorns from our woods and buckeyes from the tree up the street. The Buckeye tree is one of the first to change color and lose its leaves.

The squirrels carry the nuts to a place in the yard, dig a little hole, put the nut in, cover it up with dirt, and pat it down with their front paws. How they ever find them again is beyond me–but I do know they don’t find them all, as we see oak and buckeye seedlings growing in places far from the mature trees.

The little red squirrels in particular love the white pine seeds and have labored ceaselessly to clean them from the cones, leaving a pile of debris under the tree.

Some of my work lately has been like the squirrel–I have been gathering produce from the garden and preparing it for later use. There is great purpose and satisfaction in growing, tending, eating, and storing our own food. Traditionally–at least after the industrial revolution, we have equated work with a job. But think about the work of the settlers or the native people before that–their ‘work’ was ‘living!’ And much of that work had to do with the basics–shelter, safety, food, and clothing. Of course, these days, jobs provide the means to those very same basics. I hope on this Labor Day we can look at work in different ways–people who go to jobs, moms and dads who stay home with their children, those toiling just to survive and find a safe place for their families to live, students striving to educate themselves, people who devote time and energy to inner work, those who struggle daily with addictions and illnesses who work hard to live one day at a time, and animals and insects who work at ‘being’ what they are. Blessings to all the workers of the world!

I would like to thank you for reading my posts. I work to bring you images of Nature and words that may inspire, teach, and promote contemplation. Many thanks to those who like, share, and comment–it is the primary way for my posts to reach new people. Nature can teach us about ourselves and make us better people–it’s a great way to work at living a wonderful life.

The Lost Forty

August 26, 2015 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

It was a mistake that happened a long time ago. In 1882, Josiah King and his three-man survey crew traveled forty miles from the nearest white settlement as part of the first land survey of the Northwoods area. In canvas tents with minimal rations, the team battled bleak, daunting marshes and bogs in the six square miles between Moose and Coddington Lakes. In the November wind and snow, Coddington Lake was plotted to be a half mile further northwest than it actually lies. That mistake saved The Lost Forty.

By the late 1800’s, Minnesota was one of the largest timber producing states in the country. The state’s enormous white pines were gold for the logging companies. But the stand of virgin pines that was plotted as a lake went untouched and continued to grow.

The Lost Forty is part of Chippewa National Forest. The red and white pines are 300 to 400 years old with trunk diameters of 22-48 inches and heights over 120 feet tall–a forest of giants.

White pines have corky, gray bark and soft needles in clusters of five, while red pines have stiff needles in clusters of two and scaly-looking red bark.

It’s not easy to find the Lost Forty, and you must certainly have it as a destination–it’s not a site to stop by on your way to someplace else. With maps in hand, we drove west from Ely through miles and miles of forest, occasionally going through a small town that had somehow survived. As we got closer to our destination, the landscape changed–it got scruffier, more barren, less beautiful. We were entering the peatland area. Minnesota has over six million acres of peatland–more than any other state except Alaska. These poorly drained lowlands act as a water reservoir, and they filter and store huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Once we got to the Lost Forty pine forest, it felt like we were in another world–a peaceful, ‘Ferngully’ world. We couldn’t see the tops of the towering pines, and it was dizzying looking up with awe and joy.

Imagine the extensive root systems that feed and hold up these gigantic trees…

and the thunderous crack and crash when one of the old giants falls to the forest floor.

Large amounts of standing and fallen dead plant material is part of the definition of ‘old growth forest.’ It provides habitat for plants and animals; in fact, if dead and dying plant material is removed from the forest floor, plant and animal life decreases by 20%!

Old growth forests have trees of all sizes and ages; however, the canopy is dominated by trees from 120 to over 400 years old. The trees, shrubs and plant material undergrowth are shade-tolerant–like the ghostly Indian Pipe plant that contains no chlorophyll.

Fires were part of the natural cycle of forests and have left scars on some of the old trees. Fires also prepare the seed beds for new red pines.

As the old trees fall, leaving patches of sunlight, the new seedlings take root and grow.

Finding the Lost Forty in barren north central Minnesota was a gift–especially to the Tree Man I’m married to. Perhaps it was to see what the fruits of his tree-planting labor will look like in a couple hundred years.

Sometimes things are lost by mistake or by accident. Other times we lose things because of neglect, pettiness, or vindictiveness and retaliation. What happens when we lose something important? First, there’s that uncomfortable feeling of panic. Disbelief (this can’t be happening), anger, blame, and tension blaze through our bodies and minds in our search for what is lost. Sadness and grief can slip in when we realize that we may never find what we have lost. And what if we are the ones who are lost? Did we take a wrong road, not follow our maps correctly, get confused by conflicting information, forget who we are?

Things can also be found by accident–or is it serendipity? We can find things by intention–like our trek to The Lost Forty. And then we can find things, and be found, by Grace–when no amount of panic, anger, intention, blame or grief does the trick. It is a profound Gift to find what we are seeking or to be found when we are lost. Joy comes unbidden into our hearts when the gifts of the lost are revealed.

The Wilderness Trail

August 20, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

In wilderness is the preservation of the world. –Henry David Thoreau

The trail to Aaron’s house for the summer veers from an old, non-traveled road. It winds through rocks and blueberry patches to a huge white pine. There, on a platform of wood is his tent, partially covered by a blue tarp. Clothes hang from a line that stretches under the tarp, a canoe paddle leans on the platform, and a couple of plastic totes house his clothes and possessions for the summer.

This is not his first summer in a tent–he has spent parts or all of six previous summers living in a canvas tent and guiding people through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). The BWCA has over a million acres of wilderness with over 1,000 lakes and streams within Superior National Forest. This preserved wilderness was established in 1964 under the administration of the US Forest Service.

Wilderness is a relative term. Any of us who live in a house with running water and electricity would most certainly agree that Aaron lives in the wilderness. But Aaron says the true wilderness is deep in the BWCA where you can paddle for days and not see another person, a building, or a road. Where you take shelter in the tent you carry and set up, cook your packed-in food on a fire after gathering the wood, and where your companions are the wild things all around you.

Nonetheless, I believe if the trail to your house is the same trail a bear travels, that is wilderness enough for me. Earlier this summer Aaron and his friend Jake were walking back to their tents when they saw a black bear on the trail ahead of them. After looking at the two-legged creatures for a minute, he lumbered away. Aaron and Jake followed–yep, followed, to see where he was going. The trail leads to a high ridge above an open marsh area. (read about the firefly phenomenon in the marsh)

Now I say, ‘Luckily’ they saw the bear down below them in the marsh and not on the ridge. The bear did look up at them again but wandered off into the forest.

When we visited Steger Wilderness Center at the beginning of August, we didn’t see a bear, but we noticed evidence of one when we were on a morning hike. Along the trail, a large log had been rolled over a young sapling, exposing grubs and insects underneath. A little farther along the trail were two large ant hills that had the tops scraped off–bears love Thatching ant eggs and larvae. After seeing this ‘evidence’, Aaron did mention that one of the other interns had seen a black bear on this trail earlier in the week! Okay, keep your eyes peeled!

photo by LAn

Our hike that morning was mainly for two reasons–to see a remote lake where the guys go fishing and to pick wild blueberries along the way. The trail led deep into the forest and was beautiful and serene in the morning air. For some reason, the mosquitoes didn’t bother us, making the hike all the more pleasant. The conifer forest was filled with flora that we don’t normally see, even in Central Minnesota.

Wintergreen crept along the rocks. Gaultheria Procumbens produces oil of wintergreen, a flavoring for chewing gum, mints, and toothpaste. We chewed leaves to taste the minty flavor.

photo by LAn

Bunchberry (or Creeping Dogwood) is a woodland ground cover that loves cool, acidic soil. The berries are edible and rich in pectin, making them good additions to thicken puddings and jellies.

photo by LAn

Sweet fern was the most intriguing plant I saw but had no idea of what it was at the time. It’s a small, woody deciduous shrub with scalloped foliage that resembles ferns. The leaves are fragrant and can be used to make tea or as a seasoning. Sweet fern leaves can also be used to repel insects, as an infusion in water to treat poison ivy and stings, and as a lining for a container for picking berries to keep them fresh longer.

photo by LAn

Ground cedar is an evergreen perennial club moss that has been used for Christmas decorations.

photo by LAn

Along with these interesting plants and many types of moss, we trekked by patches and patches of blueberries. At first, we didn’t see any blueberries on the tiny bushes, and I blamed that bear who had left his mark at the beginning of the trail! Finally we came to a large patch that was loaded with berries, so we filled our containers with the small, delicious fruit.

photo by LAn

After more than an hour of slowly making our way through the woods, we arrived at the lake. Overlooking this beautiful lake was a one-room log cabin, and I hastily exclaimed that I would live there! We sat on the rock outcropping for a few minutes, taking in the peace and exquisite beauty of this wilderness paradise.

photo by LAn

Aaron is a summer intern at the Steger Wilderness Center. The older Homestead is the hub of activity where the interns gather from their tent outposts. An old lodge houses the kitchen, library, and office space powered only by solar. Dishes are washed like the interns’ grandparents or great-grandparents did it, since there is no running water. Food is stored in an ice house and cooked on a gas stove. The ice house is a large cellar built into the hill. Behind three thick, wooden doors is a room filled with huge ice chunks gathered from the lake in February and covered with saw dust to insulate. An adjacent room is where the food is stored at a very refrigerator-respectful 42 degrees F.

Twice a week, the sod-roofed log cabin sauna is fired up for the hard-working interns, stone mason apprentices, and others who want to heat up before jumping into the lake.

The center of attraction at the Steger Wilderness Center is the amazing building that Will Steger envisioned and sketched on his trans-Antarctic expedition. It’s situated high on a hill overlooking the lake, the Homestead, and the surrounding forest. It is a work in progress as materials, labor, and money is made available. It is truly a labor of vision and love.

In the words of Will Steger: My mission for the Center is to make a lasting positive impact for the future by bringing small groups of leaders, educators, and policy makers seeking to re-imagine solutions to the world’s most intractable problems. It is designed to activate our understanding of what it means to be interdependent—with each other, with our earth and as a society—to inspire clarity and break-through innovation that sparks the synergy, inspiration and fresh thinking essential to developing innovative and workable approaches to protecting our planet and creating a better world.

But why the Wilderness? Couldn’t all of this be done at a more populated, ‘civilized’ place that is more convenient to get to, more conventional? The answer to that question is revealed when a person spends time in the wilderness. And it’s hard to explain, yet you know it when you experience it.

All three of our children have lived for at least two summers of their lives in wilderness areas. Our oldest daughter Emily, like Aaron, lived near and guided people through the BWCA. She lived in a very small community of people where it was essential to work together and problem solve. She also spent quite a bit of her time alone and became self-aware that if anything happened, there was nobody else there to help. (She had one summer of a frequently visiting bear also.) She discovered a peace in the wilderness, a feeling of unity, and a strong knowing of her place in the world. Aaron believes the wilderness has grown his confidence in his abilities and has shown him that mental limitations, not physical limitations hold people back most often. He also mentioned how the wilderness has helped him maintain a larger perspective on life, while focusing on the simple, yet important things–food, water, shelter, and more.

The challenge of the Wilderness-minded people–the ones who know first hand what interdependence with our earth means on a daily basis–is to carry that feeling, that knowledge, that wisdom to the larger population. In essence, it is to straddle both worlds. My kids do that in small ways every day of their lives, and Will Steger does that in a big way with his mission and legacy of the Steger Wilderness Center and Climate Generation. Each of us has a wilderness place in our lives–perhaps it’s Central Park in New York City or a neighborhood creek in Missouri or a favorite camping place in South Dakota. Allow that wilderness place to challenge you and lead you on a trail to self-awareness, a world-wide perspective (we’re all in this together), and a sense of unity and peace within yourself.

Sap to Syrup

April 28, 2015 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

Early in March, I wrote about how we learned to tap maple trees at Saint John’s Arboretum. The season of sap and syrup came to an end around the second weekend in April. Two weeks prior to that, we attended an open house at Wildwood Ranch, the only commercial producer of maple syrup in our county. Wildwood Ranch is a family business that has been producing syrup since 1979. Box Elder trees were tapped near the sugar shack on the shore of the ice-covered Kraemer Lake.

But most of the trees in the sugar bush at Wildwood Ranch were tapped and connected to sap lines that criss-crossed the woods.

The sap flowed by gravity-driven vacuum lines to a pump house that moved the sap to holding tanks beside the sugar shack. Sap lines stay up all year and need to be checked in early spring for holes and damage made by nibbling squirrels and deer.

The evaporator fills the middle part of the sugar shack, shiny with its mirror-like stainless steel and hot with its wood-fired box that boils the sap down to syrup.

Sap begins its journey through warming tubes in the top and back of the unit, goes into a large back pan for evaporating water, then finally to the front pan right over the hot fire. It boils until it reaches a certain temperature or sugar level, then it is ‘drawn off’ into a kettle. The syrup is then ‘finished’ in another pan using propane heat for more control, so it doesn’t burn. A filtering process removes the ‘sugar sands,’ which are minerals that are carried into the tree with the sap.

Wildwood Ranch averages 225 gallons of syrup from 11,000 gallons of sap collected in a season from 40 acres of land. They sell their syrup at the local St. Joseph Farmers’ Market and at area businesses.

The ice was gone from the lakes two weeks later when we went to the Maple Syrup Festival at Saint John’s Arboretum. After months of white ice and snow, the lakes looked startlingly blue!

Three teams of muscular Percherons pulled wagon loads of people from the parking lot to the Sugar Shack. Activities included tapping and collection demonstrations, Native American syrup-making demonstrations, informational booths, tours of the Sugar Shack, live music, and hot maple syrup ice cream sundaes!

Sap collection at the Arboretum is an even more labor intensive endeavor.

The sap buckets on the trees were emptied into carrying buckets, then the sap was dumped into large blue barrels spaced along the dirt trails in the sugar bush.

The barrels of sap were collected and filtered with a tractor and tanker and brought to the storage tanks by the Sugar Shack. The evaporator, named ‘Big Burnie’ boiled the water off the sap, concentrating the sugar into the wonderful maple syrup. Filtering and finishing were done before bottling the amber liquid.

Saint John’s Maple Syrup is not sold to the public. The monastery uses it and gives it away as gifts to volunteers and others. Brother Walter Kieffer, OSB, who runs the maple syrup operation and has been doing the sweet work for 53 years, says, “It’s a gift to us, and it’s something we can give away.”

Hard work is intrinsic to the production of maple syrup. It is a rite of spring for the many people who have been doing it for years and decades. There’s more than one way of doing it, though the basics remain the same. And the rewards for a season of hard work are something that cannot be defined by money. There are many things in life that are like that–parenting comes immediately to mind. Think about all the gifts we are given in our lives–the gift of love, family, friends, nature, health, and time–and how we, in turn, can offer those gifts to others.

A Man Who Plants Trees

April 24, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

He that plants trees loves others besides himself. –Thomas Fuller

Photo by Rosemarie Varner

My dear husband Chris has been planting trees for over forty years–this flowering dogwood in front of the Odessa First United Methodist Church is just one of thousands that are the legacy of his hands and spade.

Watching him plant a large tree is a study in precision and ease and of sweat and dirt. He places the tree, then cuts a circle around it with his sharp spade. He moves the tree aside and expertly skims the sod from the circle. His foot steps the spade into the soil with a satisfying sound, and he lays that spadeful neatly beside the hole. He continues to step, lift, step, lift, step, lift–making it look easy, even as the sweat starts rolling off his face and arms. A sharp clunking sound and a jarring vibration in his hands indicate a rock, and with additional finesse and muscle, he removes it from the neat, straight-sided hole. With the handle of his spade, he measures the correct depth so the tree is not planted too deeply or too high. The width is one and a half times the diameter of the root ball. He gently rolls the tree into the hole, cuts the twine and unpins the burlap from the root ball, kneeling in the dirt he just overturned. By now his shirt is wet with sweat, and his cap and belt are dark-stained with the salty moisture. The tree is in its place, and with a vertical, cutting motion with the spade, he tamps the soil into the hole to anchor the roots in their new home. His ‘helper’ (me) turns on the water hose and trickles water as he tamps, and soon the hole is filled with dirt and water. The sod is chunked into strips and lined around the hole, and the bermed crater is soaked with a slow stream of water.

Chris has planted trees of every kind and size in four states, has grown them from seed, has pruned them, watered them, moved them, cared for them, and reluctantly cut them down. He has planted trees to memorialize people who have died and to celebrate people who are alive. He’s a tree man through and through.

Arbor Day was established in Nebraska in April of 1872 by J. Sterling Morton, a journalist who wrote and spoke of environmental stewardship and the interrelatedness of life. He wanted to set aside one day for people to plant trees and learn to care for them. Trees are the symbol of life and reflect a hope for the future and concern for the generations yet to come. Arbor Day is now celebrated in every state and in other countries. Many school children receive a free tree sapling to bring home to plant. In the words of J. Sterling Morton:

“ … all the people strive on Arbor Day to plant many, many trees, both forest and fruit. May the day and the observance thereof be cherished in every household, and its name and fruits become as a shower of blessing to the long lines of generations who shall succeed us.”

Today on Arbor Day, step outside and receive the shower of blessing from all the trees that surround you, and leave a legacy for the future generations by planting a tree.

Happy New Year from Nature!

April 14, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

There is a subtle yet palpable excitement that I feel at this time of year. The colorful, organized seed racks are on prominent display at grocery, hardware, and do-it-yourself stores. Established nurseries and greenhouses have been busy for months sowing seeds into flats for vegetables and flowers. The pop-up garden centers are setting up their hooped greenhouses on pavement, surrounded by pallets of fertilizer, potting soil, and mulch. And the Spring plant material is arriving!

I also love the coming alive of the trees, shrubs, and perennials in our yard and woods. The quickly evolving changes demand a daily walk-about to see what has emerged from the dormant branches or the warming earth. After a fairly dry winter and early spring, the heavy gray skies on Sunday showered us with a half-inch of much-needed rain.

The grass turned green before our eyes, and the maple tree flowers opened their red buds to pompoms of scarlet and yellow.

A leopard frog leaped through the yard towards the house, her belly swollen with eggs.

Gray pussy willow catkins and yellow-flowering forsythia are the harbingers of Spring.

While the demure pussy willow is often overlooked, it is hard to ignore the sunshine bright forsythia when the flowers burst forth from their origami buds.

The rain prompted the growth of day lilies and irises, rising like the phoenix from the ash of dried leaves and last year’s rubble.

Rosettes of sedum popped through the river rocks on the warm, southwest side of the house.

A crinkly raspberry leaf unfurled from the ivory bud, shimmering and full of potential.

Clusters of lime green needles emerged from the woody stems of one of our petite larch trees. Larch are deciduous conifers that can grow 80-120 feet tall. Our trees are less than a yard tall–babies with a long life before them.

Sprays of buds adorned the lilac shrubs, each plump green leaf bud tinged with violet, foreshadowing the fragrant flowers yet to come.

I saw my first Robin last evening, the feathered harbinger of Spring. The vest of red-orange covering his rotund belly was bright against the gray tree branches. Welcome home to the North Country!

Spring is the Happy New Year in the seasonal life of Nature. It is a time of anticipation and excitement for a new growing season for the diverse Kingdom of Plants and for the next generation to take its place in the Kingdom of Animals. Plants embody the literal translation of ‘turning over a new leaf,’ while we embrace new beginnings and fresh starts.

The beginning of a New Year on January 1st has little data to prove itself beyond the calendar hanging on the wall. But Nature’s New Year has abundant and hearty proof that we can all begin anew and make a fresh start! When things seem impossible, we must remember to witness a tree transforming from a gray skeleton to a richly robed specimen. When the music is gone from our lives, we need only to experience the symphony of spring peepers or the melody of robins to know at our deepest level that Hope lives and sings in our soul.

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!

–Henry David Thoreau

Spring Anticipation

March 22, 2015 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

The sun rose to reveal an unusual sight for a Central Minnesota Spring Equinox–no snow! Two years previous, I was standing knee-deep in the white stuff on the first day of Spring, so we’re already way ahead in the waiting-for-the-real-spring-to-get-here game. That being said, I was hard-pressed to find many other signs of the vernal season.

I did locate a few patches of green grass by the spruce stumps, due mostly to the very early November snow we had that covered the yard with a thick blanket before the grass went dormant.

Those stumps remind me of the loss of five huge, old pines and spruces that succumbed to the harshness of the drought year, but I rejoiced when I saw a tiny replacement growing beside another towering pine. It must have been there last year, but in its tininess and surrounded by other green things, I never noticed it. So I’m counting the hardy little green tree as a first sign of Spring.

Locust seedpods and white pine cones littered the yard, looking like fall but indicating Spring with their shedding–getting rid of the old to make way for the new.

One shock of color in the brown woods was a clump of raspberry stems–vibrant and alive-looking in reddish purple, defended from the greedy rabbits by the battalions of thorns.

One green Bergenia leaf lay in the brown rubble of oak leaves and spent perennial stems. It whets my appetite for the spring ritual of uncovering the perennial beds to find the buds starting to grow from seemingly nothing. It makes one respect the power of the unseen.

And finally, I found a maple and a birch tree with swollen flower and leaf buds holding forth the promise of Spring.

Spring usually arrives for us in a cloak of white. Even without the snow, we cannot boast of the usual harbingers of Spring like the Texas Bluebonnets or the Missouri Daffodils–as much as we would like to! What we do have are tiny indications that we are bidding Winter good-bye as we anticipate the warm, colorful Spring to come.

Anticipation is one of those words that we hold a fair amount of power over how it is perceived. It can be hopeful expectation or dreadful apprehension. And while the future event certainly influences our feelings, I like to think that we can control our impression of it. Is it an optimist/pessimist thing? How do we anticipate the dawning of a new day? How do we navigate the sorrow and reluctance of letting go of the old in order to embrace the new? How do we color our world when the landscape around us is gray and brown? How do we appreciate the tiny things and respect the power of the unseen? Even with snow in the forecast, I’m looking forward to a beautiful Spring!

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