The Majesty of Trees

I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree. -  Joyce Kilmer

It's the season of the year to marvel at trees blossoming, blooming and bursting into life. What a respite after a New England winter that wouldn't seem to quit. I arrived in February when the trees were bent over, heavy with snow and ice. It felt as if I'd spent two winters here instead of just the latter part of one. Lots of cold, snow, ice and gray, gloomy skies. Days when I was cold inside and out and couldn't seem to warm up. But now, at last, it's a whole different world. The trees are once again lush and green.

Here's some interesting tree trivia ... trees have been in existence on Earth for 370 million years ... give or take a millennium.

Some are so distinctive they have names like General Sherman and General Grant. Certainly the Giant Redwoods and Sequoias of California and the Pacific Northwest are a marvel to see. They're the tallest tree species in the world and they're absolutely majestic.

Girth-wise, the mighty kaori trees of New Zealand are on the superlatives list. We visited Te Matua Ngahere in the Waipoua Forest. Another named tree, this Father of the Forest according to the Maori translation is indeed, a very stout fellow.

New Zealand was also our first introduction to tree ferns that thrive so well there.

The oldest trees, the bristlecone pines, are located in North America and, to put their old age into perspective, some of the trees we saw were alive when the Egyptians were building the pyramids. That's pretty darned old.

On Easter Island, there are no native trees to speak of. Most were cut down during the time of the moai building and recent plantings have not replaced the original growth. Most other South Pacific islands we've visited have some of the same issues. Pitcairn's rosewood trees, for instance, are nearly gone, having been used for timber and never replenished. This is probably a small scale preview of what we can expect as a consequencesof the world's disappearing timberlands and rainforests.

According to Wikipedia, “trees have been venerated since time immemorial. To the ancient Celts, certain trees held special significance as providing fuel, building materials, ornamental objects and weaponry. Other cultures have similarly revered trees, often linking the lives and fortunes of individuals to them or using them as oracles.” There's the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life and all sorts of mythological little wood nymphs and deities that inhabit trees.

We especially liked the arboles banderas in Chile. Translated literally as “flag trees”, they leave no doubt as to which way the prevailing winds blow.

My sister's backyard is thick with conifers and she calls it Camp Woodland. She's 20 minutes from Boston, but lives in what seems like the midst of a virtual forest. Her trees do not have names, but they certainly do have personality.

Stone Walls

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall...” from Mending Wall by Robert Frost

As we drive along the serpentine country roads of little towns in southeastern Massachusetts, I can't help noticing the plethora of stone walls that abound in the area. It only makes sense that the abundance of glacially strewn boulders and rocks should be moved out of the way and made into something useful, but there are just so many of them. What labor and sweat must have been involved in digging these up, hauling them and piling them into stone walls and fences.

Many older houses have fine stone retaining walls which are works of art and serve a good purpose. Most use mortar to hold them together. Heritage walls surround old cemeteries and burial grounds. But some dry stone walls which marked land boundaries in days past, continue for miles and miles along back roads or through now-dense forest, their reason for being long lost. I guess they provide good homes and hides for local critters.

The poison ivy seems to thrive over, under, around and through them. Moss grows thick as green velvet in their chinks and crevices and lichen covers their worn and weathered surfaces. I'm always amazed at tiny flowers that manage to thrive and poke out from the tiny cracks in the stonework. In some areas, the walls are dilapidated and the stones are scattered. Historically, mending walls was a springtime chore to repair any winter damage and insure land and animal boundaries remained sturdy and intact. These abandoned walls need mending, but who would bother to do such a thing nowadays in the middle of the woods?

My grandfather was a stoneworker … a mason ... as was my cousin. They had a feel for stone … how stones could be fit together and interlocked to withstand weather and time. He could eye a pile of stones and pick just the right one to be laid next. The ultimate masons were, without a doubt, the Incas. When we visited Machu Picchu, we marveled at the intricate stone work, fine craftsmanship of their walls and the immensity of the stone projects they completed without the aid of modern equipment or for that matter, the wheel!

We've talked of having a stone cottage one day with old rock walls on the property … near a pond maybe. So we can skim stones while telling the grandkids tall tales about our sailing adventures.

Hats

 

I have a love-hate relationship with hats. On the one hand, there are some of them that look great and if I wear them as an accessory, say to a wedding, it's wonderful. On the other hand, sometimes they look goofy, but they're a necessity in order to keep the sun from burning off my scalp or my ears from freezing and falling off. They always flattened down my hair and leave me disheveled. There's no avoiding hat hair if you wear a hat.

People wear hats for different reasons. Native Peruvian women, for instance, wear bowler-type hats called bombins. The style of hat indicates their “tribe”.

Men on Taquile, an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, wear woolen stocking caps which are knitted by the men themselves. Depending on the way they wear them indicates their marital status and whether or not they're flirting with someone.

The hats worn by some of the native tribes of the South Pacific are pretty elaborate though I had no desire to buy or wear one.

There are formal top hats, which in my humble opinion, look ridiculous on all men. There are stovepipe hats a la Mr. Lincoln and pillbox hats a la Jackie Kennedy. Veiled hats, picture hats, fedoras, derbies, berets, tams and dingleberry hats. There are those cool ones that the U.S. Park Rangers wear and the iconic ones that are worn by the French Foreign Legion. How about the Bearskin hats worn by the Buckingham Palace guards or the Beefeater hats? If you've got to wear a hat, you might as well make a statement.

Panama hats are my favorite. They're made in Ecuador, not Panama, and we received quite a lesson in quality hat making when we visited Montecristi, Ecuador, the Panama hat making capital of the world. We tried on many and we each ended up buying one. I liked the jaunty way it sat on my head as I tilted it to the side a bit. It blows off in a good wind, however … like on a sailboat, for instance.

I tend to wear the typical baseball cap for excursions ashore. It covers my head and stays on when it's windy, but allows my pony tail to stick out the back. It does not cover my ears, however, which can sometimes pose a problem, so I slather on the sunscreen. We wear watch caps on night watch and sometimes even ear muffs. The hat hair seems to matter less in the dark, at sea, at 0300.