April 13th, 2007
family trees
John’s voice comes over the telephone line in whispering hesitation. Would I like an orphan lamb to raise on extra milk from my dairy goats? Within the hour, I’m driving along icy dirt tracks leading to a stone house atop a sweeping ridge. To each side, open fields slope away to meet fence-rows of leafless chokecherry bushes twined with wild grape. Through the receding blanket of snow, patches of winter-bleached pasture grass rattle in the ever-present winds that comb these hills. Overhead, the interlaced limbs of sugar maples clash wildly like antlers, a restless canopy above the drive, sheltering and guiding the way to the lone man’s home. These trees are the ancient ancestors of forests long ago sawn and ploughed under on neighbouring farms.
My journey is made in early spring, in the season of newborn lambs and running maple sap. These visits have become a form of ritual and certain customs must be observed. Each visit begins with a quest for the reclusive inhabitant of this land. I scan the trees along the edge of the great maple forest beyond the barns. But no, this last year, John has been forced to confine his sap collecting to the double row of trees along the lane. He is now too frail to conquer the snowdrifts that keep him isolated from his forest — one of the last great stands of sugar maple to be found on this patch of highlands.
Scenting woodsmoke, I turn toward the house of warm-hued sandstone. The back-kitchen door hangs cracked open slightly. Wispy tendrils of steam escape, inviting further investigation. I give the door a slight push and peer inside. The room is filled with thick, sweet fog roiling up from deep pools of sap boiling in make-shift troughs over a massive Findley wood cookstove. Along three walls of the room, a line of wooden pegs is burdened with the mouldering garments of successive generations — a testament to the many layers of humanity that have passed through the doors of this dwelling. Here, time drifts past as slowly as the dust motes suspended in the amber light shed by the single window looking out onto the open fields. I close the door softly. John will be found elsewhere this day.
I circle around the spring-house half-buried into the rocky knoll upon which these buildings stand. Its walls are crafted of the same meticulously squared blocks from which the main house was built, the work of Scottish stonemasons in the mid-1800s. John is not here, but not far off either. A few freshly split maple blocks lie tossed upon the near side of the woodpile — honey-pale against blocks turned bronze by the light rain falling through the leafless fingers of the maple limbs above.
Crossing to the barnyard, I unlatch the drooping wooden gate and pull it in a scraping arc across the frozen muddy earth. The barn is old… a post-and-beam quite in character with its own century. With a clapping whir of wings, a small flock of pigeons bursts forth through a gaping crack between boards under the eaves of a steeply-pitched roof. I watch them soar upwards to roost on the decapitated remains of an ancient wood-stave silo at the north end of the jumbled mass of moss-encrusted barns and drive-sheds.
I enter the main barn through the cedar shake-clad toadstool of a milk-house that grows out of the planks of the older stable wall. Along its cobwebbed shelves, rows of rusted tobacco cans sit in disarray, their painted sides displaying forgotten trademarks half a century old. They are filled with bent nails, bits of hardware and machinery parts once deemed too valuable to discard. Atop a worm-eaten beam, curiously-shaped bottles hold the last sticky dregs of patent livestock medicines. Here lie the accumlated remains of a lifetime of repairs and remedies — reminders of an earlier age when peddlars plied their wares from farm to farm along this rural byway.
With a dull thud, the door between the shed and the stable drops hard on its hinges. My entrance is noted by the dozen red-roan shorthorns lying in the crisp golden staw of the nearby aisle. They suspend bovine rumination in mid-grind to stare in unblinking silence at the unexpected apparition in their midst. Believing that my appearance might herald the commencement of evening chores, a few stand and shake their heads and rattle the chains of their stanchions in eager anticipation. I pause to consider the complex odour of the barn… the fragrant sweetness of clover hay, the sharp pungency of fermented silage, and the familiar animalness of dampened sheep fleece intermingled with the soft breathings of cattle.
In the dim light shed by a scattering of fly-specked light bulbs, I recognize John’s outline. He’s down on his knees in the packed and steaming bedding of a sheep pen, guiding the frantic lips of a new-born lamb in its quest for the oily teat of its dam’s engorged udder. I mark the tension in his shoulders as he prepares to rise, now suddenly aware of the altered barn sounds which signal the encroachment of a stranger. Slowly he stands, but does not straighten noticeably, his back bowed from decades of hoisting buckets heavy with sap, milk and water. He is a compact man, sharing an economy of bone with his thrifty shorthorns and low-set Dorset sheep. But he is withered even smaller now, by his great age and a life spent stooped in arduous labour. He wears his ancient uniform of dark green farmer pants and brown plaid woolen jacket over unseen layers of vests and underclothes. These are his frail body’s only defence against a world growing steadily beyond his strength and understanding.
Seeing me, he climbs over a hurdle and stoops to grasp the orphan lamb coiled in sleep beneath a manger. With the spider-legged creature draped over one arm, he shuffles slowly forward through the straw.
Our spring ritual has undergone subtle changes since my first visit three years ago. On that day, John deftly avoided the burden of speech until he had placed the lamb in a box on the seat of my truck shortly before my departure. Out of necessity, he was driven to whisper, shyly, that seven dollars might not be too much for his little lamb. Today, conversation comes to him more easily for it is rooted in our common experience. I praise the size and vigor of the lamb cradled in his arms. He asks how past lambs have grown. We talk of his sheep and cattle. He directs my attention to a well-marked heifer calf born yesterday morning. Unaccustomed to speech, his lips form faltering words, but soon they find strength and speed. He hands the lamb to me, finding it too heavy to hold for long. Freed of their burden, his hands join with his voice in relating the major events of the year that has elapsed since I last saw him. He moves to a nearby bench and reaches for an unidentifiable object, a little “invention” — a cattle “pill-pusher” made out of salvaged pieces of black PVC waterline following a pattern seen in an agricultural newspaper. My interest inspires him to bring forth other creations to be proudly displayed and described.
After a time, we move outside and walk slowly in the direction of the house. This year our pace is impeded by the uncooperative dragging of John’s left foot. We stand together by my car, surveying the low fields to the south. The air tastes sharp and bitter after the warmth and heaviness of the barn. He talks of the trees in the lane as I casually regard his weather-grained face and milky, grey-blue eyes. I notice one errant strand of silvered hair twining down to his shoulders, escaping the confines of the winter cap with its quilted ear-flaps, a cap that encases his head like a tattered helmet. As he continues to speak, I flick away a shiny black tick that has risen out of the densely curled fleece of the lamb’s back.
John talks of his trees with a fondness born out of deep familiarity. He possesses an intimate knowledge of their health and habits. The large maple midway down the lane, the one with its crown twisting slightly to the west, was a great tree for more than the eighty years that John can recall. But the ice storms of January have broken away the largest limb on its east side. In unconscious empathy, John clutches at his own arm which, damaged by a recent stroke, now mimics the condition of his old friend. The third tree along the lane is now the rival of the once-great tree. Its south-side vein is running so quickly that its sap pail must be emptied more than twice a day, a matter of shy pride mixed with mock annoyance. Now boastfully, John speaks of even greater trees growing in the forest on the ridge, long-time companions that are now beyond the scope of his daily forays. Aloud, he ponders the possibility of doing a little tapping from those trees if the remaining snowdrifts melt down before the sap ceases to flow this season. Perhaps next year he will reopen the sugar-shack in the bush, his favourite refuge from the puzzling world which has invaded the countryside beyond his fencelines. He mentions
possible plans for taking on a partner in the bush – an occasional topic of discussion – but I sense how strongly he recoils from the idea of losing his solitude and independence.
I continue to listen to John’s proud recital of the respective qualities of each noteworthy tree. But part of me is occupied, considering this man’s place within this landscape. John has lived on this land for more than eighty years, the sole beneficiary of this property to which he belongs. Beneath the shelter of these great maples, this man once played the games of childhood. Later, the trees would become his protectors and providers through hard times, sustaining his livelihood with their firewood and sap, giving him their very lifeblood. Now the trees were his faithful companions during these final, lingering years. John’s intimate knowledge of the trees rivals the knowledge he has of his own scarred and gnarled hands. It surpasses any knowledge which he has of the ways of mankind. It is an intimacy which evades those who have not grown up on the land. There is a connection which is not felt or understood by many — one which cannot be taught, but may only be earned through the bonding which occurs over a lifetime spent within the margins of two hundred acres of field and forest.
The rain begins to fall a little harder now. The lamb shivers slightly and curls its upper lip in a bored yawn. I must go, but John is reluctant to allow this moment to end. Having now regained his power of speech, he is eager to continue his arboreal litany. He insists that I must stop at the third tree down the lane to see how quickly the sap is running from the spigot on the south side. I must do it now, today, because it may never run like this again. There may be another destroying storm before I return to the farm next spring.
At last, I depart with the lamb nestled in its cardboard box beside me on the seat of the truck. I stop at the third tree to regard the sap which flows in a rapid trickle from its southern vein. Knowing that John’s eyes are upon me, I nod my head in approval. He is waiting at the porch railing, waiting for me to share his pride in this great
tree. He raises his good arm in a slow farewell salute as I get back into my truck. I drive down the lane, watching him grow smaller in my rear-view mirror, his wavering image reflected between the rows of great maples. Watching as he enters that room with its sweet fog and dusty amber light – that place where time awaits.
© Bev Wigney – 2007