Simple gift

A newly planted spruce tree down by the Little Cabin

We are here because of our love for the land, yet there is so little we do to give back to her.  And how wonderful it feels when we do.

Down by the Little Cabin in the soft spring rain with heavy mud caked boots and a damp down vest, I was able to give just a little bit. I planted trees. 100 spruce trees in the open spring dirt still fresh and raw. A future grove, a future wind break, a current simple gift. 

The rain continues this morning. They say it will continue for the next week or so.  Sometimes our timing is just right. Can you feel the trees smile?

Timing. So rarely perfect. But if we wait for perfect, our opportunity will never arrive.

Time and again, you hear stories of folks who waited.  They are still waiting.  And the trees still have not grown in places they were not planted. Twenty years later, that wind is blowing strong around their little cabin sticking out in the middle of the flats. I wonder if they ever consider what would be if only they had… But instead, the only thing growing is the walls of the cabins, their footprint on the land, bigger and bigger and bigger they grow. How easy it is to take from the land.

I can wait 20 years. And then, I’ll appreciate the efforts of today, won’t I?  When I take the time to sit silently under their branches and listen to the roar of the river below. Or when the wind blows and my horses and I seek shelter and shade in the grove that I planted today. Or when I take a morning stroll, perhaps to feed the horses, or at least the wild birds, and gaze at their ordinary beauty, watching how they grow just a little bit, year after year after year.

The mountain will not leave. The trees will be here long after I am gone. I will try.  How can you not?

“They won’t grow,” they will say. No, they will not if you don’t plant them.

“What a waste of time,” they may say. And yet, I can’t imagine having spent a more lovely, muddy, natural and free afternoon.

You can see the answers for yourself. And we will see the trees. Growing.