Here at the end of Homestead Lane we watch helplessly the dance of death in the treetops. The whirlwind roars, the saturated ground after weeks of flood, freeze and snow reluctantly gives up the massive root balls of cedars and firs as the wind twists and pulls.
This is land which was once heavily logged-we have come across a skid road and an open well that serviced the crews and the animals that pulled the sleds filled with harvested lumber. In the woods there are ghosts of the first growth trees they removed, tall trunks like archaeological remnants. The loggers left behind second growth cedars (not marketable) and firs (not yet mature).
This whirlwind has brought them down in neat rows across the old logging roads. There are terrible wounds in the protective belt of trees that surround us and our neighbors. Paul and Mary have suffered irreparable damage to their trees, and in Gary’s case, four cedars fell on his house. Our one close call came from a seventy foot Great Fir that grazed the pump house. The trees around the studio, which were badly mauled, fell in the other direction.
We discovered that trees die differently-alders crack and split as do sections of the large maples; uprooted cedars and firs whisper as they sink, cushioned by their branches. As the trees begin to fall in rapid succession, they sound like cannons going off, the ground shaking.
From one point of view, we can assure ourselves that we survived. We had enough wood split to keep the wood stove burning, Charles made soup on the stove top and we peeled satsumas and drank sparingly of our stored water. We are strengthened by the love and concern of neighbors and the islanders who arrived with chain saws to open the lane and our devastated driveway,We will replant the stricken woods and slowly clear the debris.
But we worry about the birds and animals whose runs have disappeared, whose shelters and food are buried under the fallen trees. We know more trees will come clown, so many are still hooked on standing firs. But we now see the sunrise and sunsets clearly in all their vivid colors and the strong line of Mount Guemes marks our horizon. Those far off trees still stand and seeing them reassures us that the island endures.
-Tess Hoffmann