The Where

From where I sit, all I see are trees and a small slice of sky. At this time of year, all is textured and leafy, and the tree growing toward my window is bearing small red fruit. No one can agree on what kind of tree it is, not even the so-called arborist who came to prune it, nor the alleged landscape architect who designed the foundation planting several years back. Checking the Field Guide to North American Trees, (what, you don’t have one of those?), it seems to be a crabapple of some sort, which are not native to this area. That makes two of us.

I live in semi-rural technically-suburban Rhode Island in a house tucked into 1.5 mostly wooded acres. The majority of the trees are second-growth oaks, meaning their mighty ancestors were chopped down by my ancestors (I use the term loosely) and these gangly teens are what grew back. Like human teens, these trees are a lot of work. Sure, they provide shade, but they also pelt us with acorns, coat us in pollen and throw down three times the number of leaves they seemingly have. But I digress.

The property is exceptionally peaceful and very easy on the eyes, something we were pleasantly surprised by when we turned up here six years ago. We bought the house on the internet while living in Costa Rica, having no idea what the setting was except that it wasn’t in a sub-division. We got lucky. It’s the perfect spot for observing wildlife (ever hear of a fisher cat?), leaf peeping and watching the woods fill up with snow, the perfect setting for a writer’s retreat.

This is where my words spill from, where I string my sentences. Welcome to Word in the Woods.