Ode To The Pines

Thirty-five years ago I bought twenty acres of woods in North Central Wisconsin. What sold me on the particular plot was a tall stand of red pine trees that were at least forty feet tall back in 1973. These trees had been planted plantation style during World War ll.

Originally there were over four hundred of them, but after 2 selective thinnings about half remain. I built my log cabin in their midst. These gentle giants now reach over ninety feet into the sky. They shade our house in the summer. And remind us of coming falls, when cold breezes whistle through their boughs in October.

A couple of years ago after two summers of severe drought, about a dozen of them (closest to the house) became stressed and susceptible to a nasty little insect called a "pine borer". One of them died and eleven others now show signs of the same fate, so sadly they are being cut down today.

Ode To The Pines:

I pitched a tent on your needles soft

As I lay on the forest's floor...

gazed up through your branches, high aloft

and saw things like never before...

I built my home, cradled in your midst

and you sheltered us from the storm...

the seasons pass, as seasons must

yet you kept us out of harm...

tb