I was sitting in a deer stand 16 feet off the ground. It was November and I had my recurve bow with its quiver of arrows in my lap. Waiting for a deer to pass by in range gives me time to look over this woods from my perch and ponder change. 

A jagged, snapped trunk sits directly in front of me. Tattered, tangled and torn trees remind me of the August blow that resulted in whole trees swaying and crashing down. 

The night of that storm we donned headlamps when the power went out.  When the winds became more fierce we headed to the basement.

The following morning unveiled the storm’s power. We found many mature oaks, red maples and black cherry trees violently snapped, twisted or simply levered to the ground. Luckily our house remained unscathed. For days, we and our neighbors ran chain saws to unblock driveways and clean yards. 

I heard neighbors and others talk about the “mess” and “destruction” left in the wake of the storm. But is this tattered woods a scene of carnage?

Now, months later, sitting quietly in the woods gives me ample time to consider this beautiful mess in front of me. I am amazed at how the complexion of the woods can change in a matter of minutes. It’s easy to see that this woods is now morphing into a different type of woods. 

For the past few years, oak wilt has whittled away some of the big oaks. In their absence more red maples and a scattering of small white pines are showing up. I continue to pull buckthorn, but this invasive alien perseveres beyond my feeble attempts to hold it in check.

I wonder what this woods is becoming.  

I simply need to accept that unless humans come in and eliminate the woods through cutting, excavating and chemical warfare, the woods will always be some sort of woods, even long after I disappear.  How many times over the last 10,000 years the landscape here has been severely altered by weather events?

How many forests, woods and thickets have emerged, grown, died and melded back into the earth through the miracle of decomposition right here?

How many forests lie underneath my footsteps? Here the only constant is change. Always has been and always will be.

If I was to “clean up this mess,” I would be removing one of the critical cogs in this native ecosystem.  To remove a windfall tree would be taking away the very nutrients that allowed this piece of woods to thrive. Decomposition allows the recycling of nutrients. 

I am reminded of a wise passage written by the late Aldo Leopold in his book: A Sand County Almanac. If I were the “Czar of Well Being,” I would require all North Americans to read Leopold’s classic.

Leopold wrote, ‘To keep every cog and wheel of the machine of life turning, we need the whole intricate machinery of nature, and not just a few selected parts.” 

This means that to preserve the integrity of a natural environment we need to protect all of its components, the cogs and wheels, and not just the ones we find useful or pleasing. We need to shift our perspectives of what is beautiful. 

We are only now learning of the complicated and necessary braiding together of microbes, worms, insects, bacteria and more that contribute to soil health. And soil health is directly related to our own health. 

Torn limbs and fallen trees contribute as cover, habitat and food for seen and unseen life. A messy woods is far more rich in species diversity than a tidy, “cleaned up” woods. It’s similar to the richness of the unkempt, scruffy, flower-strewn lawn compared to the sterile, monotonous lawn that folks work so hard and spend obscene amounts of money to maintain. 

With another hour remaining before sunset, I heard a rustle and spotted a doe emerging from a tangle where the canopies of two fallen oak trees had crashed together.  She snuffled briefly in the leaf litter, likely finding acorns to chew. Not far behind her, a fine, mature buck followed. His attention was not on acorns but rather on her. Slowly, she kept coming towards me, trolling the buck behind her. 

How I killed that buck is another story. In securing the venison, I am  included among the countless species of life forms that are nourished by these glorious ruins of a woods.

Filed under: Uncategorized