Tremors

Woke last night like someone was shaking me awake, only it was the bed doing the shaking. My wife was sound asleep and I lay there a few confused seconds trying to figure out how she was rattling the bed. Then it subsided and right off I noticed the roosters crowing in the dark. After a while slipped back into sleep.

Turned on the TV this morning and they said there had been a 5.3 earthquake centered in Illinois, I, about 200 miles north from here. So, my first tremors.

Around 10:15 this morning felt an aftershock, my log cabin office vibrated with a dizzying effect for a few seconds. It rated around 4.5, depending on the source.

We’re about 200 miles southeast of Reelfoot Lake, epicenter of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12, strongest to ever hit the United States.

A few years ago a guy from Texas came wandering through here, retracing his roots. His family had been Tennessee pioneers, settled in Liberty for a while before they pushed further West. Had a diary from that period. They wrote about strange days when the trees swayed back and forth on the hillsides like thy were riding an ocean wave.

Must have been quite unsettling to see, and feel, but not know.

Dogwoods and Redbuds

There’s two times of year when I’d urge all with any level of passion for the outdoors to take in the woods, and its short-lived seasonal glories. The fall, when the forest is consumed with color, and right now for the brief reign of the dogwoods and redbuds. If you can’t walk a forest trail, then drive any of our country roads for the tonic of an Appalachian spring.

We’ve just emerged from the yearly early April chill known as as “dogwood” winter. It seems to herald the coming show, while there’s still a green blush to the dogwood blossoms. Maybe that chill infuses the flowers with the brilliant white which charms so distinctively under clear blue skies.

On the hillsides, along the bottoms, wherever there’s an edge to the forest, dabs of bold white counter the soft lavender of the redbuds and green hues of the awakening season. It’s the redbud's final show, too, before heart shaped leaves rule limbs now decked in delicate flowers. Under foot, the warming earth invites trilliums and wake robins, phacelia, violets, and stands of mayapple back from winter’s retreat.

A few years ago, there real fears a blight would banish the dogwoods from our spring. And dogwood anthracnose took its toll, bringing down many trees. The dogwood still reigns, but with less hold than seasons past. But the worst may be over, or at least that’s my hope.

Over the weekend I wandered off a trail into a pocket of deep woods where a dense stand of loblolly pines had been planted years ago. Another scourge of recent years, the pine beetle, left the forest floor criss-crossed with fallen trunks, moss covered and decaying.

But in their wake, young dogwoods had taken root, a stand stretching for a hundred yards or so, determined and promising even in the shower of ice pellets that fell as I passed in winter's finale.

A Long Way Here

We’re into he early throes of spring now, grass and weeds starting to surge from rent rains, leaves taking shape on the branches of all the trees and shrubs.

One of the harbingers of real spring in the woods here is the blossoming of the shad bush or serviceberry. It’s what I call an occasional tree, pretty infrequent here. In fact there’s less than a dozen or so in our entire 40 acres. So few, I set out last week to mark them so I could track them throughout the year. Tied a strip of orange on a branch then moved on search for another break of fleecy white in the woods.

Two falls ago, after all the leaves had fallen from the trees and a spot of bold pink suddenly appeared in the upper branches of one tree across the hollow. With my binoculars, I could make out a balloon tangled there. Over the next few months it gradually lost its shape as the helium leached away. One day, it was no longer visible and quickly forgotten.

As I searched for shadbushes last week I stumbled on a baggie holding a folded over wet piece of paper right below where that balloon had hung. I could make out a name, a place—Etta, MS- and a request “If you find this please call..”. So I did.

A woman answered, I asked for the name and she told me it was her six year old son who was not at home. When I explained the call she reasoned he must have released the balloon at school, either in nursery school or kindergarten. It traveled 350 miles here, but we’re not sure how long it took.

Whenever I stalk a shadbush I'll remember the reach of things scattered in the wind.