Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

For the last couple of weeks there have been sounds of sawing,  
hacking, whacking, slashing, gnashing, and punctuated by human sounds  
unspellable. This has occurred up around the A-frame area, a piece of  
wild Ozarks woods untended by humans since a fire nearly thirty years  
ago.

That fire killed the big oaks but left undamaged the big southern  
shortleaf pines. Where fire leaves an opening, nature moves in. There  
it moved in with gusto, creating a nearly impenetrable multi-storied  
mass of trees, shrubs, vines and plants galore. From cedar to  
sassafras and all between. The new oaks are now eight inches across. A  
grapevine of five-inch diameter undulates across one area like a giant  
serpent, now looping aboveground, now diving to make more roots, now  
up into the trees all around.

I went up there this morning to see what all the noise has been about.  
I stopped in my tracks, jaw slacked, eyes unbelieving, at a park. A  
wilderness park. The man has converted wild wilderness into a park.  
One can see a hundred feet ahead. One can walk among major trees with  
no fear of ticks or thorns. It is as a miracle.

Yes, this is the man recently arrived unto bona fide geezerhood, now  
partaking of a government payback for the certifiably senior. Gone is  
much of the gimpiness of two years ago; today the step is springier,  
the eyes gleamier, the hand on the axe whammier. The need for city- 
prescribed potions is diminishing. The serenity vortex that is  
Heartwood is upon him.

And Benny and I are happy to have him here.