The Forest In Your Back Yard

 Some of you may be lucky enough to have woods in your backyard. By that I mean uncultivated by man, with only trails cut into the underbrush. My own children wanted me to follow them into the woods behind our house but I had laundry to do and lunch to fix. Now my grandchildren are coaxing me into the thickets and I am getting an education. Did you know that there are two kinds of Huckelberries, one red and one purple, and that their leaves are entirely different?
 

Berrying is what keeps the eyes of my Grands sharp, as they look up and down every bush. A full, heavy, overhang of huckleberries is pure delight and stops our caravan instantly. With Papa along, the top branches are emptied as fast as the lower ones.
  "How do you know that this is a thimbleberry?" I asked Shea.
   He stood still for a moment in the dusty, graveled road and looked around him.
   "The leaves look like grape leaves and have five points, and there is a bush, and over there as well."
  

 I was impressed at his observations and curious if he was aware that he was classifying nature around him.
   "What is the difference between the leaves on the red and purple huckleberries?" I asked.
 

 "The leaves on the red are soft and thin while the purple ones are thick."
   This knowledge of berries seemed to give my grandson a feeling of power. I could see by his upright posture and his sure step that he was at home here in the woods. On this family walk we were looking for a trail that might connect to Fisher Pond. Our confidence waned as each opening in the brush stopped. We looked back from where we had come. The woods we entered were just off the kid's driveway and we had followed a trail which looked to head in the direction of Agren Park.

As we emerged from the woods back on the baseball field we came across an amazing sight. A seat, just child's size, was made by a thick branch, which had grown sideways and made a half circle. The circled wood was worn smooth, reddish brown like mahogany, and showed signs that hundreds of children had been cradled there over the years.

"King of the Forest!" the boys shouted in unison


 "And Queen as well," insisted Maggie.

  

 Nature had captured us again by this oddity. It reminded me of the bicycle which had been left propped against a tree and over time had been engulfed by it. There it was, twenty feet up in the air, with one wheel on each side of the trunk. How many years did it take to engulf the bicycle? And how old was the child now, who had left it there?
   

In our discovery of the regal throne, the quest to find a connection to Fisher Pond was dismissed. That was for another day, another walk, when we again would leave the bustle of our homes to enter the natural world.