Whiskey Jack
 |
| Pine Martin |
A rare sunny November day
Yell "Oh!"
You’d almost think they
had a voice. They have so much vibrant colour that they seem to be singing. The
wet trees must be bursting with secrets that they are dying to tell.
Almost as scripted,
Thanksgiving weekend was almost perfect. With deep blue skies laced with
streaming yellow, who could resist a hike through crinkling carpets of leaves? Between
tearing up bread bits for turkey stuffing I kept running outside to breathe in
all that beauty. I finally acquiesced to the cook’s duties but still took joy in
the weed and bright yellow daisy bouquet outside my kitchen window.
The brilliant yellow
birch and poplar trees are especially stunning this year. I don’t remember them
being quite so amazing. Perhaps it is all the rain we’ve had or maybe it is
just me appreciating that hue more than usual. Here by Lake Superior the
yellows stand out like cheerleaders along the shore.
Two types of birch trees are the
Paper (or White) birch and the Yellow. G.G. Erdmann, on a USDA (United States
Department of Agriculture) website, shared some neat data about the Yellow birch.
He says that the yellow is the most valuable of all native birches. It has yellowish-bronze
bark and the inner bark is aromatic with a flavor of wintergreen. The
slow-growing, long-lived tree grows alongside other hardwoods and conifers on the
moist, well-drained soils of hills and mountain ravines. The Yellow is an
important source of hardwood lumber and a good browse plant for deer and moose.
Other wildlife feed on the buds and the very, very light seeds. Erdmann says it
takes 99,200 of them to make a kg!
The shorter-lived
Paper birch has the distinctive white bark. The tree starts out as coppery-brown
when it is young. As it ages, the bark begins to peel and then turns white. The
Paper birch gives out an abundance of sap in the spring, which can be boiled
into syrup. Some peoples used this sap as a medicine for colds. And the leaves,
twigs and buds contain salicylates (the ingredient used to make aspirin), so
they have been used to make teas to relieve pain and inflammation.
Birch trees have a very
important role in life’s play and at one time their demise was a signal that
perhaps not all was well. If Shakespeare had to use trees as characters, the
yellow and white birch would have been in almost every act. For the story of
the tree has some parallels to the human narrative. The birch regenerates best
under shelter wood, but after 5 years, the tree seeks freedom from the
protective overstory. Flourishing birches have an adaptable, well developed
root system. They spread horizontally or go deep underground or follow the
route of older root channels. And trees, too, suffer from PTSD (post traumatic
stress disorder). Damaged trees can take a long time to recover. Or remain
beautiful with their sculpted injuries. I celebrate birch trees whenever I can.
They are the last lights in the forest; their preparation for winter is a warm glow
of hope.
Last week I discovered
another kind of hope, not that given by old trees, but by old humans. I was
waiting in line at a store in the Sault and was becoming impatient. The women
ahead of me seemed to be dallying. (Heaven forbid that one holds up a busy line
on the Friday of a holiday weekend!) However, the moment turned into a bit of
magic that affirmed for me the importance of the aged. The delay was due to a younger
woman paying for a stranger’s, an older woman’s, items. It was a pay-it-forward
kindness. The elderly lady was in shock; the younger woman was just pleased to
help; the cashier was smiling and warm. I was humbled and amazed at the
simplicity and strength of the single caring act. And after going through the
check out myself I stopped and spoke to the slower moving, elderly woman. She
was 90, still living in her own apartment and oh so pleased with the moment. As
was I. We hugged and almost cried. For a nanosecond I felt like I had my own
mother back.
If people are connected
to trees then this was a forest of emotion. We need trees of all ages. We need
people of all ages. Our world is a better, healthier place when it is diverse.
We might be all seen as green but the true colours shine under that cloak. So
as our fall season becomes yellow with age I’ll remember how great this all is.
And wait to hear what our white winter will have to say.
