The Tornado and the Twin Oak...

  There is a two mile trail that I walk most Sundays on Great Hill . Usually I bring my dog, Cora, and my neighbor's dog, Bingley (yes, named after the character). This Sunday, yesterday, was different than most. First, we hadn't done this walk in almost a month, as the summer season of traveling has scattered us. Secondly the landscape had subtly and profoundly shifted.

  While I'd been away, my home landline had received 12 messages. Two were from the Town of Acton, in rather rapid succession, according to the time stamp. The first was announcing a Tornado Warning and all that entailed. The second was to announce, that although there were trees and lines down, and many were without power, that the Special Town Meeting was going to be held regardless.

  Now Saturday, when I took the same two dogs for a walk in my local woods, The Acton Arboretum, I'd noticed many downed pine branches, young thin barked trees and quite a few thick barked elders fallen. But nothing prepared me for the placement of the how the trees fell at Great Hill.

  It's not that there were more trees down than any other storm, as this winter quite a few giants fell. Nor was it the numbers of limbs left suspended above the trail that had yet to fully drop. But it was the fact that one twin oak had been split in two. Right down the middle, with the two trunks falling away from each other and where their canopy had been, there was now light, bright like in a usually mushroom laden grove.

  I kept looking at the newly lit grove and couldn't figure out what my eyes were seeing that they hadn't noticed before and then it struck me: a lone birch tree. I spun around in a full circle and realized there was not a partner or relative birch anywhere within at least of quarter mile of this elegant black and white figure. The dogs kept circling back to me, as if to ask, what did they miss?  They often smell the fox before I do (it's smells like skunk), but this time it was the singularity of this lone tree which for nearly a decade I'd never noticed that just stopped me in my tracks.

  So what started off as a routine Sunday walk with the woofs took on the largess in how storms may bring chaos, but they can also shed light on unseen treasures. We also found two woodpecker and one bluejay feather, as an added cherry on top!

  Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to the pool I go!