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.