Little things make a difference. Like tackling and completing a small cleaning project that has needed to be done for months. Or getting more medicine inside the cat than outside him.
Sunshine helps.
So does the sight of thousands of tiny volunteer maple trees, their fresh new leaves with their slightly reddish tint poking up through the unmown lawn.
Were we to leave the lawn alone it would transform into a dense thicket of maple. I know because six years ago, the last time the big maple spun out so many seeds, I convinced my husband to leave a 2' by 12' strip as my "experimental tree farm."
I love living in a place where nature is so bountifully fecund. If we were to leave this place, forest would swallow it up totally within a decade.
So the process of strip-mining and "reclamation" must be horrifically damaging, because, ten years later most reclaimed strip-mines are still sterile grass, holding the forests at bay.
4 comments:
I just love that you did your experimental tree strip! That's one of the neatest ideas I've heard of. I'm constantly pulling little sprouted trees out of the "wrong places" around my small lot, and I sometimes think about how hard they tried and how heartless I have to be... :-)
There's a part of me that would love to just let the whole lawn go to forest!
What a wonderful place where Maples grow like weeds! Here we have to carry water to new trees constantly or they die of thirst. I really can connect with your "go wild" attitude. If you ever visit MT I will take you see the Butte copper mine pit where nothing EVER will flourish again. Great, thoughtful post Sue.
Someone could go up and sprinkle maple seeds up there!
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