April 5, 2024
The Reunion
It was Friday, and I was ready for an easy work day before starting a weekend. The weather, although a little chillier than expected, was beautiful, and I wanted nothing more than to spend time outdoors. After morning coffee together, my wife and I sat down to work on an important email that reported the inappropriate behavior of a coworker. It was a fact of life that many people sucked, and some crossed boundaries that were unacceptable and inexcusable. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
After my wife left for work, I grabbed my things and headed into the woods. The bright, cloudless morning forecasted a beautiful day ahead. While the morning felt cold, the weather was supposed to warm up by midday, and I looked forward to getting a little sun in my eyes. Lately, I had seen several deer in the ravine that housed the creek, so I eagerly made my way north down the trails. When I passed by the salt lick in the pine grove, I saw two teeth marks cut into the hard block, probably from a deer.
Last year, on the northwest corner of the property, a small tree bloomed with bright pink flowers. There were no other trees like this on the property, so this year, we were waiting for the tree to bloom once again. There were several hundred trees in that area, and we didn’t know which tree flowered, so we eagerly awaited its blossoms. Yesterday evening, there were no noticeable changes to that part of the forest, but this morning, there was a surprise waiting. In the area just west of some large rocks, bright pink flowers covered the small tree, revealing its position. I wanted to move closer to inspect it, but I waited for my wife to get home. She had been waiting to see it, and I didn’t want to spoil the fun. I took a few pictures from a distance and then picked up speed, moving eastward through the woods.
When I arrived near the creek, I was happy to be outdoors, seeing and hearing all the sights and sounds the forest offered. In the brushy areas near the water I heard wrens, in the trees above, cardinals and finches. A large flock of geese flew overhead, moving southwest, probably headed for Buckhorn Reservoir. The creek gurgled and spat while a downy woodpecker thumped on a tree above me. A small eastern gray squirrel scurried down a tree, ran toward the creek, and cleared it in a single leap. It was interesting to see how fast the forest was responding to spring. Daily, the trails were diminishing in width while the visibility was dropping quickly. Everything in every direction was some shade of green. I looked out over a section of the creek where my wife and I recently saw four otters swimming. That happened a week ago, and already the vegetation was so overgrown that it completely covered the part of the creek where we spotted the small animals. They could have been there today, and I would have never known. The forest was not shrinking, but its empty spaces were.
My wife called me when she was getting off work. Because it was around lunchtime, I tried calling Pino’s Pizza to pick up some food, but they didn’t answer the phone. After repeated attempts, I remembered reading a recent article in the Wilson Times. The local newspaper highlighted a newly opened New York pizzeria called Armando’s. I looked them up on the internet and made a quick online order. I arrived home with the food about fifteen minutes after my wife with a nice hot pepperoni pizza with mushrooms, a Caesar salad, and a piece of chocolate cake for my wife. Lunch was a hit.
After eating, we walked into the forest near the small tree with pink blossoms. I told my wife it had bloomed, but I wanted her to discover it without me pointing it out. When she saw the bright pink flowers, she gasped. We walked to the tree and saw it was being weighed down by the broken branches of a nearby pine. Wild grapevines had grown over the small tree and were smothering it. We removed the dead branches and my wife bent the vines back and forth until they broke. After, we removed them and left the tree free to grow. My wife noticed the flowers were actually a part of two trees that had grown close to each other. The pink flowers were large and fragrant. They had long stigmas that shot out in every direction. These were the only two trees of this type on the property. We guessed a bird must have pooped seeds in the forest, unknowingly planting them. Nature knew just what she was doing, creating trees to house bird nests and hatching birds to plant more trees.
After work, I went into the woods alone for one last walk before the sun fell out of the sky. In the distance, I heard the hum of farm equipment. The local farmers had tilled most of the fields, but a few tracts of land still needed to be prepared. The evening forest was chilly and quiet, leaving me in a somber mood. Cold gusts of wind made the new leaves on the trees shimmer while the air whistled through their thin branches. Before me, a golden light bathed the tips of the tallest trees, signifying the sun had almost reached the western horizon. The clouded sky diffused the setting sun’s light into muted pastels of orange and magenta. I took one last look at the small tree with its fresh pink blossoms and bid it farewell. It was good to run into you again, my little friend.