Michigan Forest Life - February 22, 2026

Good day, friends,

The forest is easily visible during the wee hours of the morning, well before sunrise. From the

Treehouse I can see across the meadow to a thicket of tag alders on the opposite side of the small stream that weaves a curvy path to the West Branch of the Clam River. Perhaps it is the fresh blanket of white snow settled on all the forest’s surfaces yesterday that makes the world visible in night’s darkness. Snow on the forest floor. Tree branches. Pine needles. The Treehouse (Photos 1, 2). Snow certainly contributes to night visibility, but it is the large moon hidden behind a curtain of snow-filled clouds that is doing most of the work. Nature’s night-light is eerie and at the same time comforting. 

A lone coyote howls at the hidden moon.

Still under two wool blankets and two quilts stitched by loving hands more than sixty years ago, I stare at the Treehouse’s pine ceiling, illuminated by a single flame from the oil lamp resting on the bed’s headboard. I think again about human stewardship of this planet. Think about my own stewardship of this planet. I am caretaker of Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary. 118 acres: just a speck on any map. It is an experiment. Let Mother Nature take over. Let her make all the decisions. She is certainly more qualified for that than me. I only keep the trails clear and try to make sure other humans respect the experiment. I will not live long enough to see the results. Trees often live much longer than humans – much longer than several generations of humans. I hope that these will. For now, the process leaves me with a daily sense of excitement and wonder. 

What will this forest be like when grandchildren are my age? Will it become more diverse in a natural way?  Diverse both in terms of species and age of growing things? Trees.  What will Mother Nature do automatically? Will species now thought of as invasive find their natural place in an ever changing environment – as every plant and insect in the forest has done at some time in the distant past, as humans have. Will an ice storm, or fire, or drought take out trees that I now see as old growth. The big white pines. Will nature permit trees growing now to continue to their own kind of old age? It is an experiment for grandchildren and great grandchildren. An experiment to let nature be nature.

I know my own footprint is much bigger than Winterfield Pines Nature Sanctuary. I am probably less conscious than I should be of resources I consume in civilized daily life. We humans need resources, as do other animals, and we need to dispose of the things we have used up. But, we need more than other creatures.

A 118 acre experiment is a noble thing. There are plenty of places like this. Places left to Mother Nature. In the human world of civilization I am happy to be responsible for one, and to abdicate that responsibility in the human world to Mother Nature. I watch with curiosity.

Can you imagine animals of the forest looking back at us in the same way we observe them? Studying humans? Trying to understand what makes them click?

“We have observed,” a large, wise deer says, “that the human animal has taken blueberry bushes growing around the edges of the swamp, and planted their kind in rows in a place where they have removed the trees. The humans spend several weeks each year harvesting the fruit. Interesting. They try all kinds of tricks to keep birds from taking the fruit first. The fact is that now the humans doing the harvest seem to have more blueberries than they can possibly eat themselves. They must have complex societal systems to distribute the blueberries to other humans.”

“They cut grasses growing between the bushes,” another deer tries to understand. “My studies show that humans do things simply for their comfort. Perhaps it has something to do with making their tasks easier. Perhaps it has something to do with the quality of their harvest.”

“How about their machines?” The first deer asks. “We would need to travel far, and study for many seasons to understand how they create such complex things. What is their motivation?”

“Ask your brother,” the second deer answers. “He specializes in such studies. He seems to understand the human and their car better than most. He has lots of data. The smallest details. A true expert.”

“Do you think humans understand what they are doing? They often to do something that affects something else, which seems to surprise them, and then they try to correct the unplanned result in another way – with some other human creation?”

We humans do live with complex dependencies driven by a complex array of motivations.  We harvest resources from below the earth’s surface as if they are endless. Minerals. Natural gas. Water. We cannot SEE how fast resources are being use up. What we cannot see often seems less intrusive than what we harvest above ground. We have our needs, just as every living thing has needs. Human needs change based on our creations, our technology, our desires, our cleverness.

To an animal, we are another animal. Do they understand our behavior? Do they accept our use of resources -- the way we manage the world that they see as their own? Or perhaps they don’t think of the world as their own. Perhaps they see themselves as part of a naturally inclusive whole, of which humans and human civilization is also a part.

In the Author’s Notes, at the end of FOREST LEGEND: THE TALE OF OL’ SPLIT TOE, I write:

” The human challenge – perhaps the human dilemma – is to walk softly upon the earth. To use no more than we need. To waste little. To create without destroying. Like the forest, to adapt continuously to an ever-changing planet.”

It is hard to do.

Permit me to offer another FOREST LEGEND teaser – preview snippet 22 of 27 (Photo 3).

Only five more weeks – five more snippets – until the FOREST LEGEND is released!

I wish you a few minutes to think about humans’ place in the natural world, and several wool blankets while you are thinking.

Until next time,

Dan (Photo 4, 5)

Excerpt from Chapter 27

AD 1974 - For the family whose ancestors were pioneer farmers—Angus’s family—1974 was not a good year. During the preceding two decades, the farm progressively shifted to a dairy specialization. The family built up a herd of 130 Holstein dairy cows and three beef steers. The steers they fattened to butcher for their own table.

They first noticed the problem late in 1973 when a calf was born without hair. What the local veterinarian saw puzzled him. It was not only the calf, but all the cattle seemed gaunt and lethargic. He took blood samples and sent them to the lab at Michigan State University.

Before the results returned, the calf and two additional cattle died. The dairy farmer rolled the carcasses into the bucket of his tractor and brought them to the back forty acres, where he buried them.

Copyright @ 2026 by Daniel S. Ellens

Pre-order wherever you buy books – Hardcover, paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Publication Date: March 31, 2026

Praise for FOREST LEGEND:

“Ol’ Split Toe, the majestic, time-traveling deer, takes us on a magical ride through ancient forests, the land of the First People, colonial settlement and deforestation, and modern times.   An epic adventure story that will transform how you look at our land, and inspire you to conserve it.”

– Bill Gleason, Author and Tree Naturalist, West Hartford, CT.