pine

I have a wood thing going on here. Well, not just me, it seems, but everyone who burns wood for heat on the whole of the West Coast. Blimey! That is a whole load (no pun intended) of not-woodness. I’m not sure any of us saw this coming, or, it might just be me who never saw it coming, what with my focussed presence in the present and with no reading of news or paying much attention at all to the slivers and shivers of doom talk in the village. Notwithstanding, there is no wood. It wonders me. What about the old and cold folk? I hope they have heaters, that’s what I hope, although it is a backside hope considering the sudden rise in utility bills. I can, at least, stand, walk, split big logs. What of those who cannot, and, what if this continues all the way up to winter? Let’s not go there, spiralling into that cold flapdoodle. Let us remain in the present moment, something my counsellor advises me to do, a place it is best to be because if I step out into the stratosphere of chaos and imaginary collapse, I just might never return. No, that isn’t me. I will always return because I have the gift of good health, strong limbs, (ish) no medication, no condition beyond widowness, which, for your information, isn’t even a word.

My wood box is empty. It’s a big old box and I am never happier than when it is full. It used to be so easy. I call, I order, the split and seasoned wood arrives with a cheery smile. I stack, and grin, the abundance thing always grins me.. My log box smiles back. I think about the trees, the felled trunks, the gift they give, these felled giants and the warmth they bring to my bones. A merry fire, merries. Another not word. However, I have some old pine woodland out back and the trees, over 130 years old now, are beginning to die. Can you begin to die? I suspect, yes. Felled by an expert feller, stacked in the woods, some, and a few of the bigger rounds brought down to my garage. These rounds are ready for splitting. Hmmm. The biggest waist girth a much bigger woman than I, but, I encourage myself, they are light, seasoned, ready for the axe. I apply stout boots and go to lift the first. I can do this. The other rounds snigger, I hear it and shoot them a fierce look. They quieten. Now, I do know about splitting wood, how to avoid the knots, where to place the axe, or, in this case, the wedge. I grab the mell and almost fall over. It is way heavier than I remember. Bracing, my stomach muscles ready, I place the wedge and swing the damn mell. I connect and the groan from this huge round tells me I picked the very spot. With a great deal of puffing, missing, and foot darting as the whole thing leaps off the block, I chop enough for one evening. One Evening? Yes, I am afraid so, just the one.

One morning I decide to attack a twisty one. It is ready for this as am I, or so I thought. I whack the mell and whack the mell, the right groans coming from this part of a lovely old tree, and whack and so on and so forth and fifth and even sixth until the wedge is deep inside the determined roundness of the round which remains, well, round. Rats! Now I have my only wedge wedged and completely buried. I hear a chuckle and raise my hand like a schoolmarm. I step back to assess. I will not call my neighbour, a weak 70 year old pathetic woman, I will not. My brilliant brain kicks into life. Observing the stuckness of things, what can I do to free this wedge sans man help? What I need is a pole with a point, that’s what I need. I have one, surely? I do. I place it beside the sniggering wedge. It is too high for me to whack with a mell which is weighty as a ton of lead. I think again. Elevation, that’s it, for me. I heft the stuck wedge and the pole and big round of ancient pine onto the concrete floor, stepping onto the block. Perfect. I whack and whack and so on. Suddenly, the pole achieves my aim (thank you pole) and the wood breaks apart. I am exhausted but so chuffed with my body and brain power. I am not done. I may be alone with these alone things, I may be 70 but I am not done.

And tomorrow? Well, I go again……..

Woods. I recommend them. Among trees, my daily ‘among’ thing feeds my soul, lifts my feet, my heart. When I walked, careless and young, my hand inside my dad’s big warm palm, there were trees but I had no idea of their sentience. I knew they kept me from rain beneath their wide leafy branches. I knew they shaded me from the intense sun-punch. I knew I could climb through their limbs. I knew they lined our suburban street. Beyond that? Clueless.

Oh my, how I have learned over time, so much, so very much. Even the street trees, those ones pushing through the confines of concrete paving slabs in shopping centres, even they have a voice and a story and more, something wonderful and something healing to share. However, my daily walk is into wild woods, no people, only the trees, the deer tracks, the otter spraint, the lift of a a snipe, although I only heard a flutter from the bracken as I walked and the flash of a lifting bird.

I turn to where the track lifts kindly gentle past horse chestnuts and up to the beeches. I say hallo my friends, as I always do. They are quiet for now as a big hooha of a hail storm has passed on through and the sky ahead is promisingly blue-ish with only a few flattened clouds, stunned I decide from the slam of sudden hail arriving on the back of a cold wind. I may just make the whole walk before the next one arrives, which it always does. On I go past the politely fallen pine, 20 paces long I count. One big limb hangs over the road just high enough above it not to poke me in the eye, fingers canting down all bare and dead. Witches fingers. I call a greeting to Finneas and Magnus the only huge pines in the fairy woods who have given me their names. I round the corner and into the straight. This part of the sylvan scape is flanked solid with hazels and birches, the chorus line. Hallo ladies, I smile at them, feeling the usual urge to burst into song, and stop to study another fallen giant, this time a beech and this one still living despite the man-high curve of yanked out roots. Its fall is held in the arms of what looks like an Eucalyptus judging by its bark. The beech fell, arms wide and this beautiful saviour caught it slap bang in the belly. Although the beech, a huge one, did make contact with the ground, the saviour may well have kept it breathing still. Eventually, I am guessing, this holding up thing will exhaust the saviour and I suppose even saviours have a life span.

Where the track curves back on itself there is another beech of whom I am particularly fond, the one who grew straight out from a rock face, turned straight for the light and who now is almost taller than the others that surround it. Brave woman, I say, as I always do. You think me of me, of many women, of all the courage and sheer determination that ensures life goes on, no matter the difficulties. As I head back for home I greet Lord and Lady Larch, Archie Larch and his girlfriend the Alder. She’s shy I think as she is always quiet when I go by. Their limbs are so intertwined that I find it hard to work out who owns which. But, no matter. They are happy together and that’s all that counts. I see the lichen, green, white, orange, the different mosses on the drystone walls, the fallen wood and in the stands of rainwater. So much colour and life.

A warbler warbles at me as I come down the last stretch. I stop to find it, but I never do. Tits chatter in the sycamores, skittering like children when school is out. One flies overhead and there is a little something in its beak, something like a feather. Nesting has begun already. As I open my door and feel the rush of inside warmth, I am smiling, refreshed, rejuvenated and ready for a cup of tea. As I sip it and reflect, I can sense a change in me, a calming peace, a sylvan lift.