In April and May, here in the mountains of western North Carolina it was clear, and very dry. It was so dry I ended up waiting to plant my garden, then never really did get it started. The so called ‘Easter Freeze’ blasted everything in April, and so by the time I thought it warmed up, it had begun to rain sporadically, then torrents. Everything looked battered for weeks. I finally planted a few things in late in June -then the rabbits had their way with it. We may just get some late beans and chard if they get bored or we get the energy to cover the beds. With the abundance of great growers at tail-gate markets around WNC and my cranky bank, it’s hard to get motivated these days, however much I enjoy walking up the hill for fresh produce. What with early clear, dry warm days but cold nights and then torrents of rain, it was an unusual spring.
Since John is working toward two fall shows (check the “Exhibitons” page for the schedule), we decided to take advantage of clear, cool air to find some old growth areas. With maps and directions supplied by Josh, the tree guy, from SAFC, we took off for areas around Douglas Falls; Pilot Cove off Mills Creek; areas around Robbinsville, Lake Toxaway courtesy of friend Mandy, and the trails around Joyce Kilmer National Forest. The one pictured here is not one of the fabled Tulip Poplars at Kilmer, but a white oak. Later in the summer, it would not stand out quite as much as the saplings and undergrowth would have made this shot impossible.
I actually took three images and stitched them together. You can barely see the crown. Alot of lateral branches were snapped off, either by snow weight or wind. At the base there were trilliums, dogtooth violets and a mass of yet unopen crested iris. Behind and to the right, a fallen elder of about the same size, but considerably decayed. There were others in the neighborhood, with similar burls and outgrowths. I once read that the Vikings treasured these protuberances and had a small cottage industry in Vinland, cutting the trees to make wassail bowls. I am not sure that it was true written by a late 19th century historian-archilogist. But it it’s easy to believe that the Vikings had denuded Scandanavia to make ships so the big Trees of Vinland would seem like a rich store of wood to use for masts, tools (looms), ships, small boats, furniture. This old dear had been struck somewhen by lightening, from the looks of the hollowed out core at the base that served some decent size bears a safe haven.
We began by looking for Big Trees, but learned to look for Old Growth: areas in the forest that had not been logged, or had been logged over 100 hundred years ago. Virgin Forest, that is untouched by human contact (what a concept!!!??) is a misnomer, and is rather mythic than real. There were after all, lots of humans in these woods long before Europeans descended with their specialty of culture change that made indiginous dwellers extinct. We did find some bigun’s, but typically, old growth is not always about big. Sometimes it means fallen, snags, and snarled and contorted growth, trees whose roots embrace rocks and each other, or twisted to catch light in a forest now wasted by lumberman who cut out those that created a conopy. Sometimes it means trees too difficult to reach, so abandoned by loggers. Occasionally it means a tree with too much character, so many twists and turns it makes little useful lumber and so ignored. We found trees that were felled en masse, then abandoned because of an unexpected blizzard or hurricane weather driving the lumberman off the ridge. They sometimes did not bother to return, and left the ‘harvest’ scattered and wasted. Of course the forest made good use of it over time, but still it seems a shame to lose those elder trees because folks got too busy or the weather turned sour. One ridge lay littered with moderately large American chestnut trees, big white ghosts of trees sleeping in the duff, cut to capture the ‘harvest’ before they died of blight. Or perhaps, the blight had made the wood useless, and so they were ’culled’ so other trees could grow, but cut they were, not broken by wind. We looked for their stumps, hoping to see what remained when I first moved here in the 1970’s: big gray tables of wood, big enough to picnic or even dance on, grayed and worn. But weather has been wetter and time has pretty much eroded those remnants, though I understand that some may remain in higher drier places or in deep woods on the western slopes. We did not see any we could clearly identify, though we saw evidence enough along old narrow guage rail beds off Big Creek. Sometimes it’s hard to know if a stump might be a big oak, hemlock or chestnut. I imagine they take in a lot of direct rain, which pouring straight down, freezing, thawing leaves lots of room for decay.
This shot was taken from behind the base of the oak, at ground level, about 5 feet way. What has this to do with painting? Not much except that we will go back to visit these elders and perhaps their character will find a way onto canvas. Or perhaps it’s just enough to know they are there and show respect from time to time and give them room, lots of room, and a great deal of respect for hanging on.
