Some Times You Just Gotta Cut Them Down.

I spent the day in the mountains yesterday.  Or the hills, if you'd rather.   Jake, Sarah, his parents, and I went up to their mountain to meet with the logger who will be cutting their burned timber.  We had a lovely picnic and spent the afternoon sorting through the rubble, rescuing any items we were lucky enough to find.  Some of us exercised our logging skills and cut wood.  That would not include me.

It really was a nice way to spend a Saturday.

Bittersweet though.  To look around and take in the destruction that surrounded us was heartbreaking.  To see the loss of property and the ugly, burnt scar of the landscape is rough.  This place was a respite from the "real world" and the beauty and peacefulness there were palpable.  As we sat at the picnic table (which made it through the fire!) eating our sandwiches, we all, silently, considered which trees would remain and which trees must be culled.  I'm sure each one of us reflected on how different things would be from here on out.  

But then as I walked among the burned out stumps and piles of ashy fir needles, I saw bits of green poking through the forest floor.  Fern fronds were unfurling.  Sorrel was growing in its clumpy patches.  Blackberries were everywhere!  There were even new leaves on the apple trees.  

This place would recover.  And it would be beautiful again.

Jake and I have spent hours looking at pictures and plans of cabins.  He has ideas to improve on how things were before the fire.  I know his parents have been searching for their own updated version of a cabin as well.   I think we are all feeling optimistic and maybe even a little excited at the prospect of how this mountain will look in the future.  Yes, it will look different but different isn't necessarily bad.  

That mountain was beautiful before the fire.  And, like everything in life, sometimes things beyond our control force us to transform our reality.  Just like with burned up trees.  You can't save or hold on to them.  Sometimes you just gotta cut them down and replant.  And there will be beauty in both the process and the end result.