Trees are being planted at Saari Manor. Oaks and maples, puddled in well to this sandy soil. There's been no rain for days. The green rain gauge by the barn is empty; dry on its iron cradle. The young trees are well tended, broken roots trimmed back along with damaged branches, but nothing else - the curve of young limbs as they've formed where they first were grown are left to find their own way to the light in this new home.
There's harmony in the planting of trees. A music of hole digging and root pruning, of puddling and planting; of hands on the roots to spread and gently bury them; the tamping and raking and setting aside of stones.
And there's songs in the tools used and laid by in casual lunchtime arrangements: the blue-back handle of the bow saw with its black blade lever and the two orange-handled loppers, one short and the other long against an ash stem; the blue-shafted spade with its yellow handle (a more spoonlike spade than mine at home) together with the orange-toothed soft rake and the black steel rake against an old oak. And over there, stabbed in the turf, an isolated spade.
No comments:
Post a Comment