This summer I have had a new nature love.  Don’t get me wrong I have not forsaken my crow clan but the cedar grove drew me in.

Trees are the silent fellows that we forget are beings too. Before I tell you my baby cedar story, I want to share a recent post by an internet friend of mine.  She writes a fabulous blog called Parallax. It touches subjects from man’s spiritual being to nature and this week “The Secret Lives of Trees”.  Here is a link to her post for your tree loving moment – Parallax

I have visited a place I call the enchanted forest for over 20 years. It is a stand of cedar trees that range in age from youngsters to old mama trees.

The oldest best I can tell is 465 years old – Mom tree is what I call her and she was born around 1553. Then there is Bear tree. He is a bit younger born around 1700. His name comes from the face he has shown the world on his trunk.

Last year and again this year there was a group who planted native trees and bushes in the park. They put many little trees on the floor of the grove. Sadly they did not make it due to the conditions of the forest floor. It gets little light and in summer is too dry for a young tree to make it.

This year they tried again and the results were about the same except a few little maple trees and my three cedar trees. Here is a photo that shows two of them to the north of bear tree. They are hard to see since they are only about 12 to 18 inches tall on the cluttered forest floor.

Each Sunday I have driven to Fauntleroy Park with a jug of water. With that I carefully built small dams and watered them. It was in the 90s and 80s for months with no rain. The ground needed to be stirred to get it to absorb versus run off. I had little sticks close by to facilitate soaking their root balls.  Let me introduce you to them:

First there is Bear Baby. She rests very close to Bear Tree and even gets a ray of sunlight in the morning.

Next is Log Baby. She is the healthiest of the brood. She was planted on a very old cedar tree downed log, a nursery tree. That log has embraced her and when I watered her the soil sucked up the water readily. She actually has new growth right now.

Then there is the third baby tree a little distance away. I call her Brownie.  She has had a tougher time and I don’t sense a parent tree close by to protect her.  The best thing today was when I watered her a small spider came out of a hole at her base.  Maybe he is adopting her. He stayed on the edge of his home while I gave her the water.

Those are my baby cedars. I am going to keep working with them to make sure when the fall rains come they can make it to next year. The grove is trying hard to get them hooked up to their family safety net. I want to give them that hand of extra help to get them there.

Next time you walk through a forest or close to trees, touch them and for a moment feel their energy and ancient wisdom.