Camp stories – 2018: One: “Talking With The Trees”
But there was more to see in these trees on Bert’s farm than the fiery palette of the maples. Bert took us on a tour past his barn, down a path through a copse of these trees, beneath which the ground was crowded with seedlings and saplings, still green and fluttering in the morning breeze. The path led us to his large woodlot, in which tall pines stood in rows.
There we stopped, and Bert invited us to contemplate the two scenes we now confronted. On one side were the native trees, especially the maples, huddling together at random. But really, Bert explained, if we could only see the world from their perspective, we’d know the air of vivid autumn exuberance was an illusion; in fact, they were all caught up in a desperate struggle: each tree was stretching for the sky, competing with all the rest to take in enough sunlight to make its food to get through the coming long, cold winter.
This was not a friendly contest, but life or death, all against all. And below, the riot of green around our feet was even more deceptive: among the slim saplings and winsomely tiny seedlings, almost all, he told us, were certainly doomed. They would be crowded out by others, with the bigger trunks and branches blocking access to direct sun. At night, deer and other animals would chew up the tender shoots