TAMARACK TREES - GOLDEN GIFTS OF WISCONSIN OCTOBERS

Amid the tamaracks today I sit and ponder.  I've got my knee boots and a warm jacket on, my journal and pen in hand, and a peaceful easy feeling in my heart!

I can smell the pine needles that have freshly fallen on the forest floor around me.  Golden needles cling yet to the upper branches on the tamarack trees above.  I can hear the wind gently blowing through them now, chanting sweet thoughts to me.

A few withered mushrooms dot the forest floor, tattered with time, sporting fresh pine needles atop their golden brown caps.  A blue jay cries in the distance as I reflect back to what seems like yesterday when we planted these tamarack seedlings about twenty years ago.

We carried the seedlings around our marsh in a five gallon bucket and with my husband's home-made spud we dug holes to plant them in.  He'd push his spud down, then work it back and forth, and we'd shove a seedling carefully into it's newly created hole, pushing the tender roots down inside.  Then we'd kick the wet sod back around the split earth until each seedling was firmly set in place.  

Five hundred at a time, this was the only way to purchase seedlings from the DNR, but the cost was minimal.  They were tied with twine in bundles of fifty.  We'd slip a bundle or two in at a time, until each one had a new home in our marshy woodland.  We'd step back then and wish them luck, and quietly watch them grow.

My husband, myself, and our son planted our tamaracks in mid spring, about the time the frost was supposedly out of the ground.  Many times the spud revealed sod still frozen in early April, in Wisconsin, but as we slipped the seedlings into the cold earth they didn't really seem to mind.  

About forty percent of our tamaracks survived.  A few of them died naturally and some were smothered by the tall marsh grass that surrounded them.   Many trees fell victim to aggressive whitetail  bucks who polished up their antlers each fall by rubbing on the trunks.  My husband put fencing around as many as he could to protect them.  He used a scythe and hand weed whacker in mid summers to cut down the marsh grass around them until they were tall enough to see the sun.   He was stung several times by unseen hornets nesting in the tall grass.  

And so here I sit today, leaning up against a stout tamarack tree in our small forest, watching the falling needles drop onto my coat.

Each beautiful breathe I take, each tiny needle landing on my journal, each soft swish of breeze flowing through these trees gives me peace.  I gaze at the delicate branches dotted with pine cones above me and know I have so many things to be thankful for... but most of all, this very moment... I feel so lucky that I'm still here and have the chance to connect with this small cluster of tamarack trees. And I'm so glad that my husband invited them to come and live with us not so very long ago.

These golden needles, from light greens to soft oranges, light up my soul with their florescence like a glowing bonfire on a cool summer night, like sun light shimmering over rippling water, or a pretty pink sunset.  As a child I didn't know what a tamarack tree was.  Today I have a deep appreciation for their beauty in all seasons. 

Journaling amid the tamarack forest at my Wisconsin home