The Edge of the Wood – by John Messeder, Nemophilist & Ecological Storyteller

Cost cutting? or cost shifting

Storm clouds gatheringat sunset — *Storm clouds are gathering over the countryside* **– John Messeder photo**

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Several years ago, I was reporting on a school board’s consideration of whether to build a new middle school.

“Now is the time to do it,” the school superintendent told the board. “The new school will put us over our debt limit and the state will make the payments.”

“The school will essentially be free,” he said

I asked him whether the taxpayers might consider where the state would get the money.

“Most people don’t think about that,” he said.

Forest intelligence awakening

Dark forest trees in silhouette — *The seemingly dark wood hides a panoply of magic tricks we are only beginning to recognize.* **— John Messeder photo**

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Wandering in the Couple Acre Wood at this time of year is to walk in anticipation, mindful that life soon will return rejuvenated from its resting sojourn in winter slumber. Each year I am surprised, like the first time I met a Shagbark hickory.

I had seen the name on street signs where the species had been removed to make room for houses, but never had I noticed a live Shagbark in its native habitat. And then there it was, looking as though no other name could possibly be attached. There are other hickories in the Couple Acre Wood but they all look the same to me. I’m working on that.

PA Senators vote on Trump Cabinet appointments

**John Fetterman**
United States Senator
https://www.fetterman.senate.gov/

**Dave McCormick**
United States Senator
https://www.mccormick.senate.gov/

Following is the list of confirmed (as of 2/21/25) members of President Trump’s Cabinet showing the votes of Pennsylvania’s two senators in the format Fetterman/McCormick.

This device insulates them from us

We’re all together whirling through space on a starry night – John Messeder photo

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Back in the day, in homes across our land, newspapers — those once-treasured carriers of life affirming information — were stuffed between the walls and rafters to ward off the assault of frigid winter winds.

Winter of a different sort has brought us a different insulation —that ubiquitous device that has migrated from our kitchen wall, generally one to a family, and multiplied on its way to our blue jeans’ back pockets, generally one to a person. With an R-rating somewhere around 7000, that ever-present piece of technology isolates all manner of intrusions from …

Cold is relative

*Spring is making a tentative foray and winter won’t surrender. We’re ready!* —John Messeder photo

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The temperature gauge at the edge of our flower garden claimed a balmy 50 F. From within our home, the 10 mph breeze sounded much colder.

The snow that has been hiding the grass for the past nearly two weeks is about gone. The TV weatherman said snow had been covering the ground for a record number of days. He neglected to point out that the snow piled up to the six-inch mark and stopped abruptly, and the bottom fell out of the thermometer.

Snow does not melt quickly when the mercury is below the 20 degree mark, though if today’s wind had occurred last week, more snow would have gone away earlier. But sublimation is another topic.

Snow ain’t what is used to be

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This week started with snow falling gently on the Couple Acre Wood. Outside my window, half-inch gray branches turned white, two inches and getting fatter.

The pup seemed not quite as confused as the first time he encountered snow. I watch him romp in the six-inch blanket, acting as though he’s not sure where it came from or why, occasionally looking back at me as though to ask, “what is this stuff?”

But it’s soft and he can smell the neighbor’s cats, so it’s all good.

The cost of the L.A. fires

*September 2020 smoke from California fires dims the afternoon sun over Middle Street, in Gettysburg, PA* (John Messeder photo)

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The fires in Los Angeles County make excellent television, with plenty of flames and smoke, burned hulls of homes with their former residents telling us through their tears how they’ve “lost everything.” Night after night of rerun videos of fire-fighting aircraft dropping water and chemicals on “hot spots” — a cool word some reporters repeat in reference to burned, burning and soon-to-be-burning homes, businesses and forests.

A HEAP of cold

Plowed snowbanks lead to an aged singlewide mobile home at the edge of a snow-covered field near a river. — AI-generated image by John Messeder

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A young woman of my earlier acquaintance lived with her two boys in a singlewide parked in an abandoned pasture. The field of weeds and young trees sat alongside a state highway where it paralleled a virtually unnoticed river flowing from the upper reaches of the rural county.

Alikeness

We are so much alike, Field mouse and me. Let’s be friends and play. *Photo by John Messeder*

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Among my youthful studies, I remember being admonished to avoid anthropomorphizing critters of the animal world. (Science teachers are paid more to use the long word than are folks who simply say it’s just a dog. Either way, they’re both wrong.

Bowie the dog-person proves the point. His anatomy is similar to a human. He, like me, is equipped with a nose, eyes, lungs, liver and legs. His core internal organs perform the same functions as their counterparts in my body, which is their own cause for wonderment.

Merry Christmas, y’all

Christmas morning, long ago. —John Messeder photo

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Oh! The weather outside is frightening — ly cold! In at least two of the past five years we have not even dragged the snowthrower out from under the pile of gardening equipment stored in the barn. But it’s Christmas Eve and there is a bluebird and a Carolina wren outside my window and Bowie the dog who thinks he’s human lies on the recliner behind me.

Thank you for your service

*So many opportunities and experiences lie just beyond the fences we build for ourselves.*

I wrote most of this a few days after Veterans Day, the Monday in November when we honor those of our citizens who have faced death in battle, many of them who have made “the ultimate sacrifice” to preserve our nation.

The guys who come in big trucks to disappear our household waste came at their usual hour, as they have every Monday in the time before, and likely well after, I’ve lived here.

A common language

*Not nearly as relaxed as he appears, Bowie awaits permission to chase.*

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Bowie, the four-legged dog in our family, would like to visit his friends, instead of looking out the window in their general direction, but most of them are trapped in their owners’ houses. As he is, much to his chagrin.

There are those who say dogs do not need social interaction. They are mistaken.

The way it is

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A yellow hand pump sits atop a concrete well casing surrounded by autumn leaves and pines. — I was 12 the year we built the big house and no longer needed this pump.

I occasionally find myself wondering how it is my younger self did not spend more of his time and brain power wishing for things my older self has found it impossible, or at least uncomfortable, to live without.

That danged leash

I call him Boss because it makes him feel good. John Messeder photo

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This week, Bowie the Dog takes a guest spot. Take it away, young’un. …

First let me say: as Bosses go, he’s not a bad guy. Since I’ve moved in, he and his human partner have allowed me to sleep in the same bed they do, and never outside when it’s raining — which mostly, lately, it hasn’t been.

He keeps my dishes filled with food and water, which is good because I hate to eat and drink on command.

The American Way

Grab a gun, it’s the American Way

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We killed a couple more kids this week, and two of their teachers, in a high school in Georgia.

Someone made him angry, I suppose, so he — and it’s nearly always a white male who does the shooting — grabbed a gun. It’s the American Way.

Leaving our mark

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We humans do love marking our turf. Last week I mentioned that whenever I search online to identify an insect I’ve found, the identification often would be accompanied by commercials for companies offering to eradicate it. In a sort of related vein …

The Washington Post this week reported former President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, went hiking in coastal Albania and fell in love with the place — so much so that he wants to pave it over and build hotels on it so more of his rich friends can enjoy it.

Scenes

We broke onto the field beneath one of the most beautiful examples of evanescence I’d ever seen.

Smells of new rain

An oak branch with green acorns still attached, — Gray squirrels have been cutting acorn branches they could not otherwise reach. Harvest season has begun. (John Messeder Photo)

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Harvest season has begun in the Couple Acre Wood.

We stand still among the trees, the dog and I, and listen to hickory nuts, some whole and some in the pieces remaining from the ongoing repast of Eastern gray squirrels, clattering from the canopy like balls in a wooden pachinko machine.

A bug hunting dog

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One recent morning as we headed out on our morning mission in the Couple Acre Wood, my young dog-buddy became captured by a decomposing hickory log. We had passed it numerous times, but this time it grabbed him by the nose and wouldn’t let go.