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We lost two old, old white pines (Pinus strobus) over at our operation within the last month.
Of course, everyone saw the one that came down on 61 on the end of the north side sidewalk, across our two-car parking spot, the top of the white pine come just out onto the shoulder of 61, the other end uprooted, the roots now standing up like a palm and fingers waving goodbye to that thicket of balsam firs (Abies balsamea) and those Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana) and a couple bent birch (Betula papyrifera).
When it stood, reaching high to the sky, underneath there was a sloping base on the south and east side of lichen and a carpet of orange pine needles and there was – and still will be I think – a patch of wild blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium). Richie’s wild blueberry patch is how we think of it, and I enjoy showing the tourists and the kids what wild blueberries are like, and there is never a chance of over-harvesting because they are so small, and so scattered, and so guarded by us. At the edge of the wild blueberry patch under the old, old white pine are one or two Juneberry bushes (Amelanchier) struggling to grow, and those dark purple berries have become my favorite, and I enjoy introducing the Juneberries to the kids and the tourists, and they all seem so interested. So that keeps my take on things in the right frame.
That pine, as you can guess, came down in the three-day blow before Christmas. On Thursday evening in the windstorm, I walked down the drive of my charge to 61 where my brother was picking me up to go to the Tavern for our Christmastime get together. Only to find the white pine down, like a Brobdingnagian lying black down a slight slope of white onto 61. I couldn’t believe it. I never thought that that tree could blow over. I looked around at all the swaying trees and trunks and boughs black in the windswept white evening – the white spruce (Picea glauca) and firs and maples (Acer) and aspen (Populus) and birch – and thought, how could this strong tree that has lasted so long through so much (I assume) come down on my watch while all these others still stand.
Eventually in the bright, calm, warm light of day James and David and myself limbed the downed, dead white pine. The heftier parts of the limbs we cut up further for firewood. The limbs and twigs and branches too small or too needled for firewood I dragged to the back of the property. James separated the main trunk from the crown and the main trunk from the root base, and there is a 28-foot log there now. And the root system standing and saluting and saying goodbye backward. Or like an arm extended and palm and fingers erect saying, “No more. Stop. Here endeth the fight,” to the shorter trees it had lived above.
Later and alone, I went up to the base to count. At the trunk side of the base, I counted 117 rings from the pith through the heart- and sapwood to the living and dead bark, but that was not a true count because I couldn’t follow the rings always because of the rubs and gashes of the chainsaw. So, I went to the stump side and counted again, but I came up with a very strange number – exactly 100. So, I stopped trying to ask the age.
The other white pine we had McMillan take down about a month and a half ago. That was Billy D’s white pine. It was Billy D’s favorite tree. It was at the corner of Cabin 7 (I think I got the number right). Will’s cabin. Greg’s cabin before that. Under that pine the drives divided left – up the hill – and straight – back to my work area with the trucks and machinery, the pole barn and workshop, the trees and lumber and pallets. Still, under that pine there’s a space for two different two-car parking spots.
That old white pine seemed to have run its course. It was sick from the top down. It had to go because a quarter of its mass was over Cabin 7, and it was in danger of coming down. And the sickness had to be checked.
I don’t know what kind of ailment it had. It was just losing branches and turning brownish–orange. Mike pointed out some of my other trees that were dying – spruces and firs – and he explained to me spruce and bark and pine beetles (Dendroctonus), and he showed me the tiny holes in one of our trees that betrayed the invasion of the beetle.
Sometimes when I write I overuse words that are overused. Uncreative words. Often, I do that because I think in simple words.
But how could I better describe those two white pines other than with “old and strong”; or the day as “bright, calm, warm”; or things that were “tiny or small”; or the land as “orange or black and white”; or our pines as dead?
Is Latin going to help me write that?
Faulkner knocked Hemingway once.
The keen, handsome man said, “Hemingway has never been known to use a word that would send the reader to a dictionary.”
Hemingway bit.
The old man said, “Poor Faulkner. He thinks I don’t know the big words. Well, I know the big words. But I know words that are older, and better.”
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