I will admit, the title of this blog is something of a play on
words. I am talking about dropping trees, but not about shooting holes in stars.
“Shooting stars,” in this case, is a particular flower.
Allow me to explain.
Yesterday, I spent another day at my cabin. Midway through the day, my young friend,
Geddy Parker, drove up to help me fell some large, dead-standing trees I
considered too dangerous for my skill level.
Geddy has the skill. He worked as
a logger for several years.
I worried about felling the tree myself for two reasons. First, most of them were compromised by
splits. I feared some of them would come
apart in spectacularly deadly fashion once touched by a chainsaw. Secondly, I feared I might drop them against
living trees I want to save.
After his arrival, Geddy assessed the trees and then, using precise
cuts and wedges, dropped about a dozen beetle-kill trees for me. He dropped every tree perfectly. I have posted a video of his work on one of
the trees at the end of this blog.
Shooting star flowers rather flare like a shooting star, though they
are not much larger than your thumbnail.
And they are equally as ephemeral—blooming briefly in the moist early
weeks of spring before the small plant receding back into all the other
nameless whatnot comprising a mountain meadow.
On my drive out from my cabin, I spotted a few shooting star. I stopped my truck and crawled around on the
grass to capture a photograph with my smarter-than-me-phone.
—Mitchell Hegman
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