I grew up in Ohio, a land rich with oaks, and now I live in Tennessee. Oaks are prolific here. Red Oaks, White Oaks, Black Oaks, Post Oaks, Chinquapin Oaks, and a multitude of other species. Some oaks interbreed; therefore, identification can be tricky. They are sturdy workhorse trees, and some of them hold the niche once filled by the endangered American Chestnut. They grow in the company of Hickories, and some people use the term Oak—Hickory forest.
For a while, I lived in New England, where the forest was Beech—Maple. Those are the dominant trees of the region. The forest has a different feel, just as a Pine forest has a different feel.
I once walked through a primeval Beech—Maple forest at Warren Woods in the Michigan Dunes. The trees were big enough that it took a chain of three people to reach around one of them. I have also visited the primeval Tulip Trees of Joyce Kilmer - Slickrock Wilderness near Robbinsville, North Carolina, and I would love to visit a primeval longleaf pine forest of the coastal plain.
I am fond of all those trees and have written poems about them, but my life’s journey seems to have been from Oak to Oak thus far. Most of the stories in the newsletter will not be about trees, but I see them as ever-present. They are the setting in which my stories take place.
That first post was friendly philosophy, but what can you expect here? I am writing a nonfiction book about my experiences in the natural world. Some chapters are previously published pieces to which I retain the rights. Others are drawn from my unpublished journals.
All chapters are under review by a stringent writing group that offers developmental suggestions and holds my nose to the grindstone regarding matters of form. When I publish the book, it will be professionally edited, but here you see a work in progress.