It is done, I thought, as I looked out the window after the storm and saw the remains of our magnificent old birch sprawling across the driveway. All through the night I kept waking, listening to the roaring then wailing wind, wondering if it would be the night she fell.
Oddly, I didn’t hear her fall unlike two years ago when the first huge trunk came down and struck the roof of the south porch. I started awake wildly, convinced my husband had fallen down the stairs. When I found him comfortably in the blue armchair where he settled when the storm kept him awake, I went back to sleep. It wasn’t until morning that we realized what had happened.
This time the shock was replaced by a sense of inevitability, sadness at the wide hole in the once tree-graced view, and gratitude that we had two whole years extra to enjoy her shade, watch the goldfinches play among her branches, listen to the gentle clatter of thin ice-covered limbs in winter, and marvel at the color and texture of her mighty silken trunk.
After the first storm, we planted two new trees across the driveway. I read that birches have an underground relationship with fir trees, so we planted a balsam fir in a bid to support the patterns that might occur naturally in the forest. We also planted a forest pansy redbud, a small tree that will thrive even if adjacent trees grow large.
Now, surveying the downed birch, I noticed with amazement that the huge tree had fallen between the two new trees, almost surrounding the fir in an embrace of branches. A friend came to help us clear and as the cutting and hauling and stacking was finished I saw with relief that the birch saplings growing from the base were still intact. We had left them in place in hopes they might survive.
I felt profound awe at nature’s power to persist, to sustain, to survive. The cycle was continuing. And so it is done, I thought. But no.
An article appeared on my news feed, an interview with Dr. William Moomaw of Tufts University, a distinguished scientist and researcher. He explains how large, older trees are the most important to our future on earth as they are most efficient at capturing carbon. Small trees are all well and good, and should be planted in abundance, he says, but they will be able to do little in the short run to cool the climate.
Unfortunately, he states, trees 70-80 years old are the prime target for the lumber industry, just when they are becoming powerful assets for carbon sequestration. He goes on to sound a warning: the Southeastern United States is site of the greatest deforestation on the planet right now — yes, more than the Amazon or Indonesia.
The driver is the wood pellet industry, marketing its product as “green” and sustainable, but now documented to be taking whole trees, not just wood waste. In the South, they are cutting not the pine plantation trees, which produce less heat, but the wetland hardwood forests with large trees. And, he warns, New England is close behind. He cites recent partnerships between the U.S. Forest Service and Massachusetts agencies to log state forests, with the blessing of Gov. Charlie Baker. We have seen the results nearby in Wendell State Forest.
I look outside to the place where our birch is missing and think about the new trees we will plant and the ones we need to protect. Now I see that far from an ending, this is just a beginning.
Judith Wagner is a resident of Northfield.