No matter the season, forests bring bounty, mystery and hope for tomorrow
When sun warms our days, as it did this past week, and bare ground prevails in the woods, a forest lover has no choice but to lie on his back.
I lay on mine under giant white pines and considered the beauty of forests. Morning sun kissed their tops, turning green into golden pine needles.
Underneath me, a cushion of duff testified to the scores of Septembers those needles have fallen, turning hard ground to soft forest soil.
I thought of earlier in the morning when sunshine sent shafts of bright light through dense fog that enshrouded each red oak and maple. So beautiful many would call it a moment of bliss in a forest cathedral.
My pines stand guarded by towering hardwood companions. I pondered the steadfastness a forest embodies; how, year after year, I can count on its seasonal changes.
Every spring when that first blush of pale green says the tree buds have opened. Every fall when those trees signal changes ahead as their colored leaves sift to the ground.
More: Out in the mid-winter silence, the wood cutter refines his trade
And just as this permanence offers me solace, the forest’s mysterious side brings its own joy to bear.
Secret lives transpire here. Every knothole may hide a bird’s nest or a bundle of flying squirrels cuddled for winter. Every empty branch suddenly may find itself perched on by a barred owl or hawk on the prowl.
Or perhaps bears lumbering through our upper woods in black single file, a huge sow and her beachball-sized cubs. Or fishers streaking up trees where their gray squirrel prey hides in one of those knotholes I mentioned.
There might be white-tailed deer bucks grinding antlers on striped maple trunks to rub off tattered velvet of summer. Such forest vignettes play out on a stage where the actors rotate every day. Only quiet observers can watch.
As I lay on my forest pillow, I reached out and touched fallen cones from the white pines above.
These would dry, open up and become forest bounty. We would use them as winter stove kindling. The forest surrounding us offers much more.
July mushroom hunting yields black trumpets bound for a marriage with pasta and parmesan cheese. August means funnel-shaped chanterelle mushrooms, pan-roasted and sprinkled on toast.
In September, we scrutinize the base of oak trunks in our forest. Our quarry: a cluster of mushroom caps fanned out to look like a large ruffled chicken. Hen-of-the-woods guidebooks call it. We call it divine mushroom soup.
Our forest provider is not finished yet. It makes sure we have ample firewood to get us through months when snow covers the ground. And during that time, come the end of December, a spruce from the forest gets strung with bright lights and adorned with a star at the top. Forest to living room cements our connection with nature.
For the love of this forest, and those everywhere, I cobbled together these musings while flat on my back.
Long live tall pines, their trunks creaking and swaying on high. Long live the forest that offers up hope for tomorrow.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: In Southern Tier forests, find bounty, mystery and hope for tomorrow
