the Wizard's lair...outdoors scenes....


Winter Views North, from just outside front door (120 inches winter 2007-8) -
this is fresh snowfall in early morning in March

                        


Behind landlady's house is four and half acres of woods.   As some visitors will know, much of New England
was logged by the early colonists, and there are few old growth original trees.   On one of my walks in the woods,
while preparing trails and listening to the invisibles teach me, I came upon two tree stumps, both considerably
larger than any of the surrounding trees.   It occurred to me that these stumps may have been remnants of the
original forests.   The grandfather tree is upright, and as you can see it is cut off about chest high.  The two
trees are on a more or less East West axis, with the grandfather more to the East.   The grandmother tree is lying
down, apparently an attempt was made to uproot it, which attempt failed.  If you walk in these woods and come
upon these trees you will see that surrounding them on the forest floor are seedling representatives of all the
different kinds of trees and bushes to be found there, as if gathered in a circle to learn from the Eldest.   These pictures
have too much light to show this and I'll try sometime to see if I can get better pictures.  In what might be called the
 root-womb of the grandmother tree (pictures 4 and 6), is a plant that grows no where else (at least as far as I have been
able to so far discover) in this section of these woods.   While looking at it I had the thought of the hawthorn, which is
a small tree or bush that produces a very helpful herb for the heart.   At the same time this plant growing out of the
 upside of the grandmother tree could be anything.

                      



                       


view from the landlady's deck - 7 a.m. in late May...  from left to right, picture 2 (with sun)
is more or less due East...