Changes

Remember that Beatles song 'Changes'? Well the dirt road is changing. No matter how much we would like things to stay the same they are continually changing. 
Logging has come to our road. Not for the first time nor for the last. When we bought our property some 30 years ago a lot of the land surrounding us had been logged. Even now 30 years later you can see where a skidder left its ruts. They are large relentless machines with a job to do, pulling logs out of the woods. Down at the far end of McKusker Rd. which connects to my road is a large logging operation. Even though they are over a mile away I can hear the skidder, the chainsaws and the cherry picker as they do their work. Cutting trees down, pulling the logs out and loading them up to go to a mill somewhere. Double logging trucks hauling out the logs of every size and length.
Then much closer to home is a smaller operation. But with the same results. The woods that I only discovered last year with the original road are to be logged.
But this is life. In the late 1800's there were very few trees on this dirt road. This was farming land. Pastures for sheep and cows, acres of apple trees. Fields to grow corn and vegetables. And maple trees for sugaring. Trees were for cutting down, milling, burning, fence posts. The only trees needed were the ones that could make you money or feed your family. The rest, no matter how magnificent, beautiful or large were impractical. Life was living off the land and the land still has many scars to show how we mistreated it.
Rock walls line either side of the dirt road and wander off deep into the woods marking what use to be the fields and pastures of the families that lived here. Eventually the families left, the stones tumbled off the walls and trees reclaimed the fields and pastures. Sandy soil supports more of the pines while richer soil grows the sugar bush and hardwoods. Its not to say they don't mix but you can tell your soil by what grows in it. Now the trees have matured and the fields and pastures have disappeared. The trees have become the currency of the day. Just like they were 30 years ago, 60 years ago or a hundred years ago. Once again they will support some families.
Its sad but it is what it is.