Pine trees and dead things

It’s three thirty in the morning on Tuesday. I’m standing in the yard, in the rain, in a puddle. Of course, I’m only standing outside this early in the morning getting my slippers soaked through because the puppy needs to pee. It’s warmer than it has been. Maybe fifty degrees or so. The sudden rise in temperature has melted all the snow and now it hangs in the air as a thin mist. I can’t see to the edge of the yard and the damp clings to everything. Even though it is dark, the mist seems to brighten everything just a bit. It’s something of a midnight glow. I can’t hear anything but the rain falling and trickling down the gutters and the downspouts. And there’s a rooster crowing in the distance from a farm down the road. Following the puppy around to make sure he doesn’t get lost in the darkness, the earth squishes under my feet, mud rising around my slipper every time I take a step. I want to walk around to explore, but it’s early and I’m tired and the puppy needs to learn to sleep through the night.

I am working from home today, so I have time to explore the back yard once the sun rises. Around eight the puppy and I go exploring. We walk out into the yard further, all the way to the bench swing and the back gate of the fence. He’s sniffing the ground and I’m looking up. Covering it from all angles. I haven’t been able to spend much time walking around here since we moved in. At first we were unpacking and then it was just too cold. But I have a chance now, it’s a bit warmer, and I’m surprised when I look at the swing hanging on its rusty chains, the wood damp and faded from the weather and the sun. Sitting on the seat of the swing is a skull. Definitely animal, but I’m not sure what it is or where it came from. It’s sort of gross, but I’m curious about it. How did it come to be here? Did something drop it out of the sky? Did it fall out of a tree? It looks like it’s beaked, but then again there are teeth. Maybe it was a hybrid mutant bird-animal. The hide, or feathers – I can’t tell – are still there, matted and rotting away slowly. There’s another matted patch of fur on the ground by the swing that the puppy finds, so I coax him away before he can get too interested and either eat it, or roll in it.

I finally received my field guide for trees of Pennsylvania. I took it over to the pine trees nearest the fence to try to figure out what my majestic pines actually are. The rain made everything more fragrant. Of course it smelled wet, but the deep pine resin was permeating everything. The water ran in little drops down the trunk of the tree and dripped delicately from the long, slim needles to the ground where it was absorbed into the dried pine needles on the ground. And as I softly padded across this carpet, each step released the sweet fragrance.

I was confident that with my new field guide, I could find out something new about these trees that I am beginning to really love. I looked at the branches, flipped through a few pages, found one that looked sort of similar. The Scotch Pine, or pinus sylvestris, has clustered needles with a rough, single trunk that spreads in an irregular crown. But then again, the next page looked pretty close, too. The Austrian Pine, or pinus nigra, has clustered needles, too, with a scaly, rough bark. But, maybe it was that other one I had passed over two pages ago. The Red Pine, or pinus resinosa, with a single, straight trunk that was reddish-brown, and clustered needles.  I kept looking from tree to book to tree to book, but I don’t think I made any decisive conclusions. I’m currently oscillating between the red pine, the shortleaf pine (this also has clustered needles), and the Eastern white pine (again, clustered needles, rough bark, single trunk). This is a lot harder than I thought.



The puppy was interested in the tiny sapling in the yard, too, but he’s really no help when it comes to identifying trees. He proceeded to jump at it and try to bite off all of the dried leaves from the Fall. He was too cute not to take a picture. J

So, when it is a bit drier outside,  I think it will be easier to identify these mystery pine trees. The wetness made their bark all the same shade of deep brown, so it was hard to see the defining features that might be clearer on a dry, sunny day. Then I could at least make out the unique grooves and patches on the trunks of the trees. 

Bathed in ghostly day

It's one o'clock in the morning as I throw on my snow boots and jacket and tramp out into my back yard, trying to get my new puppy to use the bathroom. While he follows me willingly through the snow to the corner of the yard, he becomes more intent with chewing on the bare branches of the low-lying bush than doing his business. "Hurry up!" I say. This is the command that they recommend you say while you try to house train your dog so they will come to recognize that as a sign to get on with it. He looks at me, then buries his entire head in the snow. I sigh.

Up again at four thirty, since puppies can only "hold it" for three to four hours, he follows me again through the snow out to the corner of the yard. I wait while he sniffs around and plays with the branches of the bush again. The moon is making its descent now, hanging in the sky just over the tops of the trees. It casts a blue-silver light amid the shadows, making the snow shimmer. I exhale, and the steam of my breath it lit with a ghostly light as it dissipates quickly into the cold air. I think of the line from Jack London's <i>Call of the Wild</i>: "Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in a ghostly day."

The puppy looks up at me, then looks into the trees. I look up with him, looking at the snow perched on the boughs of the pine we are standing under. It creates a blanket on the tree and the tree is a shelter over us. It's incredibly quiet and still. There are no sounds around us - no wind, no traffic, no animals stirring - there are no sounds except the crunch of snow under my boots and the light snuffling from my companion.

I look down at him again. "Hurry up!" I say. He looks at me again, then goes back to playing in the snow. I know I'm in for mid-night poop duty for another month or two before he is potty trained. Sleepless nights, yes, but a mysterious chance to overcome my fear of my own backyard in the dark. This unfamiliar place is even more unfamiliar by night, the shadows all wrong, the light reflecting back off of the snow onto the trees and the house makes them look almost sinister. I am disoriented by the darkness. After the puppy has done his business, we trudge back in to warmth and bed.

Roots

I’ve been thinking about this word, “home.” There are so many sayings about home: “home is where the heart is” and “you can’t go home again.” But what exactly does it mean?

I was born in Pittsburgh and have lived most of my life here. When I was little, I used to think that each side of the city was so far away, and the limits of the community I lived in were as far as I would ever want to go. As I got older, I wanted to see the world. I have seen some of it, but for the most part I’ve never lived outside of Pittsburgh. I don’t count going to school a few hours away since it was so close to Pittsburgh, but the one experience I had living somewhere far beyond the city limits was the experience that really defined home for me.

For several months I was living and working in Yellowstone National Park. It’s really an ideal opportunity. While working in the park, you get room and board provided, and you’re only a short stroll away from the area you are working in. I was stationed at the Old Faithful Inn and lived in a dorm right behind it. For three days I travelled across a handful of states, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of it all. I remember my first view of mountains. Real mountains, I thought. Nothing like the Appalachian mountains that ran through Pennsylvania. These were majestic and snow tipped, blushing gold and crimson with the sun rise. Everything was new and fresh and exciting. Even the three feet of snow in May was amazing. And for someone who hates the cold, that’s saying a lot.

Eventually, though, I began to notice these new things and compare them with what I knew. The pines that ran for miles across the flat lands weren’t the same as the beautiful oaks and maples that would turn orange and burgundy in the Fall. And the constant smell of sulfur from the hot springs and geysers wasn’t how it was supposed to smell in the middle of summer. It tainted the smell of wildflowers and blew in great drifts of smoke across the boardwalks that lined the geyser basin.

I enjoyed my time there, but I began to miss the familiar smells of home. The way the forest smells in summer – hot, damp, pure earth – and the way the leaves on the trees would shimmer in the breeze beneath the sun, even the way the city crowded with people at the farmer’s markets, bustling between each other through the enticing smell of almost-salt water and exhaust. I pulled out these memories from somewhere in my head, these things that I had stopped noticing because they were so familiar. And that is when I understood that, for me, home is where you want to be. I was enjoying living in a National Park, but what I really wanted was Pittsburgh.

And when I got home, it was seeing this city, seeing these neighborhoods, with a fresh eye. There are so many things to discover here. Even for those who have lived here for so long. I remember reading an article a few months ago that was written about a group of people who drove around to old, almost forgotten Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Some of them I hadn’t even heard of even though I’ve been here for almost 27 years. There are officially ninety-two neighborhoods of the city of Pittsburgh.

It’s strange to think back on the history of this city, of all of these neighborhoods, and wonder what it was about it that made my parents choose to stay here. Or their parents for that matter. Or my great-grandparents. I think there’s something of a sense of community that bonds all of these neighborhoods and people together. Perhaps it had something to do with the blue-collar steel-millers that were so abundant here. They worked hard for their families and had humble beginnings. Even the great men who so define our city – Carnegie, Mellon, Heinz – they all started from small places and made huge names for themselves. You can actually go to see Andy Warhol’s grave. He was born here, and he’s buried here. Warner Brothers made their start in Pittsburgh by opening the first nickelodeon theatre on the North Side.  These men are true examples of Pittsburgh’s greatness. And I think a bit of that has rubbed off on all Pittsburghers. We have something of an adventurous nature to us, and yet we remain loyal to our home, our roots.

I’m sitting at the window looking out into my new back yard. Although the trees in the woods behind the house are bare, there is a dim light caressing them. The snow is rippled and crusty from the freezing winds, cut across by rabbit tracks that just showed up this afternoon. The old buildings in the back and the worn fence, the gates that are unevenly hung and sway back and forth in the wind, blowing closed with the sharp smack of wood against wood, these things all remind me of what it’s like to have aged here. To be a bit worn and yet still hold so much beauty. And there are things that remind me of the mountains, too. The pine trees that dot the yard and their fragrance. Some of these things are still strange to me, but I am learning their ways. I know that all good things and memories and loves will come together in this place to shape it into a home, just like Pittsburgh has always done.

Unfamiliar home

My goal for the next several months is to explore my back yard. This might seem like a trivial task. I mean, how often does someone not know where they are living and what surrounds them? I, for one, don’t know. This is mostly because my fiancé and I just moved into a new house, and partially because life can keep you so busy and focused, that you don’t take the time to look around every once in a while.

So this is my new back yard. The picture is taken from where I sit on the back porch in the morning having my coffee. The yard is partially fenced in, the beams of the fence slightly weathered and slightly uneven. Behind the fence is more yard, and, as you can see from the picture, five of the seven garages that belong to the property, and now to us.

It’s odd for me to be surrounded by pines. I’ve always been in areas of Pittsburgh where deciduous trees are prevalent and pines are scarce. True, the forests of Pennsylvania are full of a variety of both deciduous and coniferous trees, but for some reason, I never associate pine trees with much else in Pennsylvania besides Christmas. When I was in Wyoming and Oregon, the pine trees out there greatly outnumbered the other types of trees, making the air smell all wrong. It didn’t smell familiar at all. It didn’t smell like home to me. Even during the summer when the sun warms the trees and the forest floors, the smell of summer – that clean, warm, humid smell – wasn’t exactly right. Not that it was bad. It just wasn’t summer-smell.

At home, though, the pine trees are a nice reminder of the time I spent out West. It’s like a little piece of the mountains were brought here for me. Of course, there are still plenty of other types of trees – oaks, maple, birch. But these pines are the first thing you notice. I wondered this morning what kind they were. There are one hundred and fifteen total species of pine trees in the world. How am I even able to begin to guess? The needles on some are the long, soft kind. The others resemble the traditional Douglas Fir with the short needles that I always hated. People usually get the Douglas Fir for their Christmas trees and the needles are uncomfortable when you put lights on them. I am not a fan.

Whatever species these pine trees are, though, they still make my own back yard seem mysterious with unfamiliarity. Even after having been here for a month, I still look out at the pines and wonder why they are here. Why instead of another type of tree were they planted in the yard? Is it something in the soil? Or maybe the previous owner just really liked pines. I’ve always been a fan of white birch trees. They seem elegant with their white-silver bark and the contrast of the yellow leaves in fall. But these pine trees make me re-think the majestic.