Today is a rainy day,
but I had to take a walk.
So I have my favorite little umbrella
made by a company called Leighton.
It’s very steady, very well-made.
It’s double around the rim and opens very nicely.
Though slightly small it is just right for little walks.
I like it.
The woods were noisy with rainfall
but it was all rain that was caught in the leaves.
As I walked out of the woods it was quiet again.
My first stop was the little shed next to the pond.
While in the shed it poured down raining.
It was delightful.
I like sitting in that shed when it rains.
The rain eventually stopped and I moved on toward the vale.
I stopped at my first special place to sit on a rock on the near side.
I sat studying the underside of my umbrella.
What a cool design.
And then – I noticed the rope.
I think it once held up a pump down in a well.
Then it got used for other things.
But I found this 18 inch piece laying in the field
and I tied it around this tree that’s here next to where I like to sit.
I don’t know where the ropes were used last.
I’ve tied three ropes here, actually two ropes and one twine.
The twine was bailing twine. All of it is plastic.
The heavier blue and white rope that once held a well-water pump
is about a quarter inch in diameter.
The other twine is only an eighth of an inch or less.
I tied the bailing twine around a tree where I like to enter or leave the vale.
No one may ever notice it.
As a matter of fact, I don’t expect anyone to notice any of it.
Now I’m walking to the other side of the vale.
First I walked down the west bank to the vale bottom.
It’s not a steep climb down or anything.
It’s a small vale. It’s only maybe 100 feet across at the bottom.
Now I’m climbing up the east side.
I just passed the groundhog hole at the bottom of the tree.
Now I’m approaching my other favorite spot to sit.
You may ask, “Where do you sit without getting your ass wet when it’s been raining?”
I bring a plastic trash bag with me.
I unfold and set it down where I want to sit.
And now here I sit on the tree
which leans over at such an acute angle
there’s room for 4 or 5 people to sit on this tree.
It’s only 8 to 10 inches in diameter.
There is a little branch arising next to me
where there’s another blue-and-white rope tied.
I can see the other tree where the first rope is tied
but I can’t see the rope.
And I can’t see the rope at the wood line
where I will emerge when I leave for home.
It’s beautiful and green here.
There are lots of trees of different sizes.
It’s fairly rocky here too.
Some of the rocks are sharp and some are rather smooth.
That tells me something.
The sharp ones have been revealed sharp by more recent breaking pressures.
They’ve been cracked with sharp edges exposed.
The smooth ones have been weathered down by many years of rain.
It becomes obvious that water once flowed down this vale.
But it’s been a long time.
I expect glaciers left a lot of the soil here.
And trees left a lot of soil here.
Trees don’t grow very large here when there’s very little soil.
But they fall and become soil.
Then subsequent trees grow larger.
Then there’s the dust that falls to earth every day
that must add an inch every few hundred years.
The old old trees are gone entirely with no signs of the trunks
where they broke off or fell over.
There are a few trunks left from trees that have fallen over more recently.
And there are some that have been cut.
So there’s always an increase of soil.
Some of the trees seem to be growing right out of the tops of rocks.
Some trees are growing in soil that probably has good depth.
When the trees mature that have this deep soil my ropes may still be here.
My little ropes.
Transformation by Dialectic 