"Apparently Signal Pine Road in Putney was named as such because of a huge white pine that stood atop the hill there. It is said that such trees grew all up and down the ridge line and were used by the native inhabitants of the area as places from which to stand and send and receive messages. The last one toppled off that hill only after a hurricane lopped it off about halfway up. Others would have met similar fates, had the white settlers, who soon infested every corner of the Northeast, not felled them to make masts for cruise ships on which to visit the homeland. Before me stands the compromised remains of what was one of many, but after lightening struck has resigned itself to be a twisted mass of stump-sprout growth suspended above a scarred, de-branched and de-frocked member of a once elite society."
Evan Griffith

"The bark of the birch tree is luminous in the shadows at the edge of the woods. Its loose, papery fragments are marked by upside-down Vs, as if a giant bird had walked straight up the trunk, leaving black tracks that disappear into the forest canopy.

The bark of the white pine is pockmarked with the large, swollen scars of ghost branches.

The bark of the sugar maple is etched with crusty scales, like blistering skin after the first sunburn of summer."
Deb Jones

"In the United States, only Texas has more fern species than Vermont. At least 20 species of ferns can be found here, abundant in our damp, deep woods. Ferns come in three basic shapes, single-, double-, and triple-structured. Double is the most common, having a primary stalk off which serrated leaves grow in rows. Somewhat less common is the triple structure. In this form, the fern has a primary stalk, off which grow full rows of secondary stalks, and off these stalks grow rows of serrated leaflets.

Outside the porch at the Bungalow at the Marsh Billings National Park in Woodstock, just on the edge of the mixed softwoods and hardwoods, one can find a small bank of delicate ferns that exemplifies the triple structure. Bright, fresh, neon-green in color, about two feet in height, they have not yet fully reached maturity this mid-June. They are delicate, soft to the touch, still curling out their fresh new tendrils.

There's a softness, a shyness, to these ferns. Perhaps it's their response to the recent heavy rains. Perhaps it's the unseasonable cold. But no, it seems it's their very nature to demonstrate a delicateness of being, a tenderness, a vulnerability. Not yet fully formed, their soft touch brings to mind the three-month-old skin of my granddaughter, Theadora.

I am deeply reminded to tread softly, to touch carefully, to allow small new things to unfurl."
Ina Anderson