blog 9

    I came here for something, and I can't find it. I pace around the clearing, inspecting things at random. So much changes from week to week, but is any of it worth writing about? The grass is green from rain, and thorn bushes sprout small leaves. I watch the clouds move across the sky. I run my hand across the bark of trees. I walk around and notice things, I observe changes in the environment, but there's nothing to write about except the spruce planted around the clearing.

    There are spruce trees of different size and species. On the lower edge, a row of spruce trees more mature than those on the upper side. Some of the trees in this lower row didn't make it through the summer. Orange-brown needles hang from dead limbs like year-old confetti. The others stand two to three feet tall with thin, sharp needles.

    Spruce are pyramidal trees with narrow, horizontal branches. I bend closer to the spruce, and the blue-green needles densely crowd each branch. The stiff, sharp needles bristle out in all directions.

For weeks I thought they were all blue spruce, with their color and prickly needles. The color and shape of each tree is nearly the same, but this week some stand tall with growth while others are pruned by the hunger of deer.

    This is the only way I found to tell the species apart. According to tree guides I've read, deer do not eat blue spruce. Beyond the prickly needle, they release a sharp acidic flavor if chewed. The deer choose not to suffer the flavor, but they're able to eat other spruce, such as the white, for starvation food. With a long winter, it's not much surprise that deer browsed on the white spruce.

    Compared to others, these young trees are mutilated. The deer ate needles and twigs, stripping some of the young, tender limbs clean off. Only half a spruce stands with a few random twigs spotted with clumps of needles. I've seen no deer today, but their presence in the clearing is unmistakable.

    Their hunger left a mark on the spruce. Their hunger left a mark on me, and there it is—something to write about. But is it enough to bring to you? Is there more to offer? I wanted to find something, but it wasn't there. Is this enough?  Like the deer, I take what I can get.