Rock Walls

When the leaves have fallen and a tree stands naked again, one sees the beauty in form alone. Limbs arch skyward; if broken, they point to the ground or are caught up in the arms of their fellows. A simple beauty there is in bare branches.

Other views become clear as well. The rock walls of New England stand visible as a testament to a time when the forests were fields and farmers used the offerings of the stony ground to line their properties and keep their livestock contained.

As a child, I loved the rock walls that meandered for miles through the woods. I love that my parents allowed me the luxury of spending time there. Recently, I started another book that describes some of the time spent among the pines and the rock walls. Yes, I am the queen of beginning paragraphs. Anyway, it starts like this:

Long ago, more than a hundred years, the pathway through
the woods was a busy stagecoach trail. There had been houses along its route from the little village by the river to the larger town of Aberdeen sitting ten miles northwest in the foothills of Aberdeen Mountain. Then there had been harried travelers eager to arrive elsewhere, but now there was nothing but trees, wildflowers, an old cellar hole, and a rusty-hinged gate along a crumbling stone wall.

The Very Spot

This had been a thoroughfare, now only a path for fishermen to
follow through the pine into the meadow until finding the stream that meandered down from the mountain miles above. Children, awed by the bits and pieces of a former time... old spoons, broken glass, a belt buckle... played for hours near the cellar hole until their hunger sent them scrambling for home.

Gee, just once I'd like to finish the book. :)

P.S. Some of us even build our own rock walls...here's a little photo of my daughter's backyard where she has been laboring for a few years now on a rather lengthy rock wall that surrounds her property. This is the east side. She despises straight walls so hers are curvy and follow the land just as the old-timers did.