When A Tree Falls In The Forest

With a title like that, you may think that this is going to be one of those philosophical posts, you would be wrong. This story actually started last fall, the tree doesn’t come into play until now. Let me explain.

Last fall when we had the main herd in the far, far field we used the tractor to feed so that we could do a little wood salvage cleanup at the same time. We would load hay on the front of the loader, do the feeding, then take the tractor to the old railroad grade and use the then empty front loader for hauling ten to twenty foot sections of salvaged logs back to the landing for further sawing.

We had the saw tucked on the back of the tractor to cut the logs into manageable lengths.  Sometimes I rode back there by the saw as did the dogs. Since it was the height of the mushroom season, I even tucked my white bucket on with its little blue knife that was on a shoelace lanyard. When mushrooming, the lanyard is around my neck so I don’t lose the knife, but on this day I had the knife in my bucket. As far as I can figure, I had the lanyard (shoelace) hanging out the top of the bucket and when we were traveling through the thick underbrush of the railroad grade, a branch or limb hooked the lanyard and pulled the knife out. I didn’t notice the missing knife until we were unloading the logs we had salvaged.

For several feedings after that, we would re-trace our route in an effort to find the missing knife to no avail. Luckily, the knife blade was securely tucked closed so I didn’t worry about injury if a critter or human stepped on it.

Fall went by, and so did winter. I assumed the knife was gone, gone, gone.

This week, while revisiting the old railroad grade to clean up some winter storm damage, Mike spotted the little blue knife under a fir tree that had fallen over.

It was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. If that one tree had not had the correct amount of snowfall on it causing damage enough to make it fall over. If that tree hadn’t hooked on a nearby tree and brought extra limbs down. If the extra limbs didn’t cushion the tree leaving it intact so that we would see the need to salvage it. If Mike hadn’t forced me to go up the road to the railroad grade to clean up the area. If I would not have marked the very spot for cutting on the log that was just above the fallen knife. If Mike didn’t have as keen of eyesight with a pension for noticing minute details, the knife could have been lost forever. I am happy this particular tree fell in the forest.

With a little polishing and sharpening, the knife will be ready for next fall and a new mushroom season.

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