Life In the Woodlot

foreign [Music] when a cow got through the fence into the bush I'd have to go after it or we'd go in hunting a fox or I went with my dad to cut wood I got to know it that way now even when there are no chores to be done there I've got into the habit of taking a walk in the Sugar Bush yeah Two Worlds are contained in the Woodland next door to the world of human concerns is the other where curiosity can stumble over a feather and find death [Music] all right [Music] it's a world cut off by the plow and none of its creatures would leave it for long surrounded by danger their life has been a stubborn survival when the forests were cleared away survival for a way of life was at stake but clumps no good for grazing or crops were left as long as enough was preserved nature could fit her ways into the smaller pattern [Music] I chopped from trees my great great grandfather let's stand the trees have paid for their keep with cord wood and syrup again and again [Music] also April before early milking I'd sneaked to the bush by myself and sit quiet females were hard to make out but if I listened I could hear a male drumming thank you other gross snow by the drumming it's his territory females can enter any mail he's going to fight off there's danger in showing off but he keeps up a noisy display her interest only begins when he puts on his mating display roughing his neck and hoisting his tail like a flag I found the eggs a month later she was the only hand I could find in our Sugar Bush and there was just the one male I was sure a pair of grown birds were all that ever seemed to be left every time spring came around but there are usually 12 eggs at least to begin with [Music] [Applause] [Music] the eggs demand a care from the hand which Instinct compels her to show she settles quietly down to the job of hatching the newest generation foreign [Music] not to step on something living or growing especially in May the Trillium has pushed its way up through last year's leaves getting its blossoming done in a hurry while the sun can still shine through the lattice of this year's leaves I'm alive [Music] like a moon in Eclipse the Trillium is soon overshadowed it discolors and turns to seed its blossoming already achieved Jack and the pulpit thrives when the canopy of leaves has closed in and the woodlot is deep in shade lots of things compete for whatever sunlight is let through by the trees there's may apple which later produces a sweet smelling fruit and the millions and billions of seedlings from the trees up above they spring from the ground scrambling for places and cramping their leaves they push up from the shadows and rival each other as they race for the Sun countless as stars short-lived as snowflakes seedlings don't often get to be trees but anything vulnerable nature makes multiply to counteract depletion of her ranks [Applause] let's go [Music] when my ax cuts into the woodlot the light can pour through one of the seedlings in the leap up for the sun will eventually Outreach the others and the Gap will be closed again but there can never be room for all even the most prolific species are kept in control by the sheer variety of life in the bush and the variety of appetites they possess The Twig worms appetite for the maple would destroy every leaf of every tree in the bush but the Wood Thrush has him under control just by looking out for their own all things are maintained in a vigorous balance [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] Supremacy it was the hawk that got the snake The Twist which brought death to the snake brought a reprieve to the gross chick but a grouse fell pray to a fox the Predator's action will pluck out the Surplus the unfit and the foolish [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] nothing was destroyed in the bush without my feeling the laws an old tree a young Grouse a fox I had shot myself I felt the same Gap I knew how old the woodlot was resting on dirt the glaciers had left topsoil of course was made up of things that had died during the thousands of years since boy thinks of History though in terms of the buried but that was all underneath and I only wanted to think of the not how the living were nourished [Music] but if you live near to Nature you have to observe that death makes possible the redistribution of the materials of life the strength that was once in the living tree is not lost the fungus is feeding on dead logs and stumps reducing them bringing them low are unlinking the change that structured the tree and that strength is put back into the Earth I had seen that raccoon eating all kinds of things but I knew very well that he could but a lava that eats wood can be eaten by a raccoon when you work it all out the whole system's so perfect you can't find the details repulsive [Music] [Laughter] those who are fed and those who are fed upon relate in a pyramid pattern that has shaped the lives of All Creatures the bush contains millions of lowly insects which form a basis for creatures more complex in their behavior [Music] foreign thousands of creatures at this higher level also rely upon number to compensate for their weakness for they nourish the levels above them the flesh eaters here is the potential food for the Predators who are greater in power though fewer in number towards the top of the pyramid [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] the hawk acts as Sentinel by looking out for himself he stabilizes the living structure of the pyramid which he himself makes complete the woodlot sustains all the plants and creatures in its fold and they in time give sustenance back to the woodlot the woodlot today is pretty much as it was when I was a boy I wouldn't want it changed because of all I get out of it [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Applause] I get a gross in the fall and the maple sugar and of course my wood but I always make sure there are gross left so at least one pair make it through till spring [Music] this is the woodlock my great great grandfather let's stand and as long as there's someone who understands it in the way I figure he did it will still be there when my great-great-grandson gets to know it [Music] foreign