Off the Grid: How to fall in love with a slope

It is fair to say that I am grieving the loss of my off-grid mountain oasis this time of year. All winter long, when I did not have to plow snow or split kindling or chain up my car, I was rather smug about how smart we’d been to escape before this epic winter.

But now … I bet the frogs have started chirping in the ponds, and the woodpecker – my heretofore rival – is a missed morning sound. Probably the snow has cleared from the flower beds and in another sunny day or two, the daffodils will sprout and the yellow jackets will start looking for a place to nest. (Quick! Get the traps out!)

In my grief about missing these sweet reminders of the season, in mourning what I had so carefully nurtured and connected to, I have been reluctant to go to my new land. We’re not bonded yet. We’re like the shy betrothed in an arranged marriage, near strangers with optimistic hopes but no real understanding of each other.

I place unfair expectations on this new hilltop, raw and undeveloped, to somehow offer the same soul-soothing moments. But there are no fruit trees, no decade-cultivated garden, no manicured trails. Yet.

On a sunny day, I reluctantly drove to the new land to see what is beneath the snow melt and come to terms with the devastating tractor scars of site clearing. This shoving about of dirt, this decimation of trees and brush and mossy patches and lupine fields makes my chest heavy with guilt. What right do we have?

I took my pruning shears and clippers and disappeared into a thicket of trees and brush at the edge of the clearing.

“Hello forest,” I said. And then I set about the work of getting to know it.

This land has been overgrown and unmanaged for decades. The ponderosas are enormous and crowd out the straggling firs. Impossible alder bushes choke out the sunlight while vines wrap around the trunks of suffocated trees. There is enough deadfall and dead-standing to promise a blaze should a wayward spark float by. It is impassible, even to the competent bush-whacker.

There are a few birch trees in the gully, and a handful of cedars on the north slope. In a few weeks, patches of lupine will emerge and we’ll see if the one willow tree we planted survived the winter. The wildlife has made coves within the overgrowth, nestling in with their young. I see the moose prefer the southwest slope and the cedars, and the deer are closer to the west side.

In old stumps, logged far before my generation, new life has grown in the form of heavy lichens and mosses. They are a soft carpet upon the nourishing decay of these masses. The floor of the densest forest is dotted with holly and wild raspberry, their fierce thorns leaving my arms scratched and raw. I cannot identify them all the plants, for almost nothing has leaves yet.

How does one connect to the land? I wonder as I snip, snip at the smaller things and clip, clip at the larger ones. Hours pass as I work my way between the trees, removing scraggly lower branches, sacrificing the less healthy of a too-close live tree in order to save another. In a stump I find a carpet of thick moss, and some small leaves of something delicate and unusual. I cut back the alder shoots to give this minority a chance to thrive.

As I wind my way down the slope, opening up the crowded trees to spring sun and dragging piles of debris to a clearing, I can smell the sweetness of soil and wood permeating the air. Slowly, the tangle of shrubbery and stunted trees transform into a shaded forest with dappled sunlight.

I ask my husband to cut down a dead tree and he mentions the chainsaw.

“No, no,” I plead. “I don’t want any machines today. Can you just use the handsaw? I’m making this my park, but I don’t know what I’m going to name it yet.”

He obliged. And it was a big tree. I acquiesced when he suggesting pulling it out with the four-wheeler. Then he brought over two chairs and the picnic bag.

We sat there in the trees, taking in the soft evening light and the sound of spring birds. I introduced myself to the trees I’d tried to salvage and made note of who needed a little more pruning. At least in the few hundred square feet I’d cleaned up. Only five more acres to go.

Home, I thought. That is what I will name this place.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com