Join me for a walk through a rain forest on a corner of a small island. This is to remind everyone that even in a world full of bad news, the trees are still there. From the slopes leading down to the sea they reach up for sunshine and rain, offering no objections to humans walking in the tall quiet spaces between them.
[The island is Keats Island, where we’ve had a cabin since 2008. It’s mostly just trees and cabins, you can buy an oceanfront mansion for millions or a basic Place That Needs Work for much less (as we did) or you can camp cheap. Come on over sometime.]
On the path up from the water to the cabin there’s this camellia that was unhappy at our home in the city, its flowers always stained brown even as they opened. So we brought it to the island and now look at it!
One interior shot. On this recent visit I wired up this desk, a recent hand-me-down from old friend Tamara.
When I got it all wired up I texted her “Now I write my masterpiece” but instead I wrote that one about URI schemes, no masterpiece but I was happy with it. And anyhow, it’s lovely space to sit and tap a keyboard.
Now the forest walk.
These are rain forests and they are happy in their own way when it rains but I’m a Homo sapiens, we evolved in a sunny part of the world and my eyes welcome all those photons.
In 2008 I was told that the island had been logged “100 years ago”. So most of these are probably in the Young-Adult tree demographic, but there are a few of the real old giants still to be seen.
Sometimes the trees seem to dance with each other.
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Both of those pictures feature (but not exclusively) Acer macrophyllum, the bigleaf Maple, the only deciduous tree I know of that can compete for sun with the towering Cedar/Fir/Hemlock evergreens. It’s beautiful both naked (as here) and in its verdant midsummer raiment.
But sometimes when you dance too hard you can fall over. He are two different photographic takes on a bigleaf that seems to have lost its grip and is leaning on a nearby hemlock.
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And sometimes you can just totally lose it.
It is very common in these forests to see a tree growing out of a fallen log; these are called “nurse logs”. It turns out to be a high-risk arboreal lifestyle, as we see here. It must have been helluva drama when the nurse rolled.
I’m about done and will end as I began, with a flower.
This is the blossom of a salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) a member of the rose family. It has berries in late summer but they’re only marginally edible.
It’s one of the first blossoms you see in the forest depths as spring struggles free of the shackles of the northwest winter.
Go hug a tree sometime soon, it really does help.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Robert Sayre (Apr 22 2025, at 17:11)
Oh no! It is a Gen Z thing to say: "touch grass".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/touch%20grass
[link]