Michigan Forest Life - August 7, 2025

'Tis a quiet morning in the forest (Photo 1).

Only a few stray screeches from a bird flying about. I heard it moving from west to east. Now it is several hundred yards to the south. Perched. Squawking when it feels the need. It is trying to rev up the forest choir. To get something going. But only one other bird timidly responds with a half-hearted "blurp...blurp." Where are the birds this morning? Is the forest's symphony taking a day off?

A lovely pine smell drifts through the air. It is always the thing that greets me when I arrive. The distinctive delight that tingles my senses and lets me know that the forest experience is more than simply a visual pleasure. It is the aroma of the trees. The feel of forest oxygen filling the lungs.

Breathe deep. 

The forest touches you in so many ways. It is the almost imperceptible sound of your own foot dragging through a thick blanket of pine needles as you walk. The rough feel of a

branch picked up off the trail and tossed into the woods. Sap from the branch that remains on your fingers. Sap that is hard to clean off.

It is nice to be back in the forest. In the Treehouse (Photo 2).

This is a short trip. I have a guest along with a unique personality. Cathy's dog (Photo 3 and 4). I sense that the dog experiences a multi-dimensional sensory wonderland similar to what I do in the forest. He stands alert, looking cautiously into the trees. What does he see?

The dog sniffs a new smell at every plant as we walk the trail. 

These are not the smells of civilization. He is curious. Filing each spot in his memory. Each animal trail that crosses our human trails. The signature of each creature that crossed the path we take. The dog's nose is to the ground trying to get closer to the smell, trying to follow the path. He stops. He looks up, hoping to greet the squirrel that left it calling card.

I watch the dog’s feet trot lightly across the pine needles in the trail. They are soft. Then, through a sandy spot. Also soft. Soon we walk down a trail of broken gravel. I remember what surfaces like that felt like on my bare human feet as a child. The dog trots down the trail as if it is no different from the soft pine needles.

I remember the hot blacktop surface on the urban trails I walked with the dog earlier in the week. How does a dog do it, walk so happily on such difficult surface without foot coverings? Is it something humans could also do if we were not so conditioned to our modern ways?

A few days in the forest for the dog is like a few days at camp. He is in the wilds. A different kind of freedom. A different life all together. 

When I come to the forest I feel the pleasure of having one foot in 2025 and the other foot in 1825. When the dog comes to the forest I sense he feels the pleasure of being half wild. Two feet in the natural wild world and two feet still in the human world.

Life is good.

I wish you a day with one foot in the human world and one foot in the wilds... and a guest to share the experience with.

Until next time,

Dan