pine grove

I try to walk a few laps around the southern perimeter of our place everyday. The reason I chose the south end is because it is shaded in large oak trees, and in the summer the heat is more tolerable. The rest of our place has open pasture and in the summer months I try to avoid too much sun exposure because it makes me feel sick in a hurry. If I stay in the shade it seems I can walk forever. The first part of my lap takes me through these young pines my husband and I planted as 6 inch seedlings about 10 years ago. Actually we planted so many more all over the place, but that is about the time that we really began to notice climate change. The summers and winters became drier and many of the seedlings just fried in the ground. We are fortunate to have these and another patch to the east. It was tough work poking hundreds of holes in the earth, and then heeling them in only to have most of them die. Every time I walk past these I think of how lovely it would have been if they had all grown. Katrina took out thousands of pines and oaks in the area around us. At least these few will be around to fill some of the blank spaces.