This Month's Story

One day, as I was walking through the woods behind the house, I found that there were several remnants of trees that were gone long before we had moved there. These were decayed stumps that, as I looked closely, were filled with what appeared to me to be enriched, dark mulch. Looking at these stumps and their mulch I felt that I could use the mulch for the new plants I was planting beside the fence encircling the house.

Mind you this was a long time ago and I was a neophyte at gardening. It appeared to me at the time, this dark brown material should certainly be good for plants. It was this type thinking that made me believed that fresh sawdust was good for the plants. In fact, I had so heartily believed this that I had spread great quantities of sawdust around the new plants I had placed around the house.

I had a lot to learn.

Excited about what I had found, I went back to the house and got a black plastic garbage bag and a small hand shovel. I also invited my daughter to join me as I set out to gather these deposits of rich “mulch.” Cathy was about seven or eight at the time and eagerly joined me in this, to her, adult excursion into the dark woods. She took it upon herself to carry the black bag and followed me into what she perceived as a great adventure.

The first stump was rather poor in mulch; its roots spreading widely from the stump, each sub-branch rather than yielding a rich amount of mulch barely made our effort worth the time. The second stump proved to be much better, evidently it was the remnants of a large tree that had a deep tap root. I quickly began digging out large amounts of dark mulch and Cathy just as quickly pushed this it into the garbage bag. We were both very happy!

Soon I gave up on the small hand shovel and began scooping the mulch out with my bare hands. Deeper and deeper I dug. Each time bringing to the surface scoops of rich mulch which Cathy dutifully stuffed into the bag which was rapidly being filled.

She smiled! This was indeed an adventure! She was working with Dad and he needed her! Later she would tell her older brother (by slightly a year) of what she had done and envisioned his look of envy.

By now, I was on my side digging deep into the root with one hand. I was lying on my side. My arm stretched down deeper and deeper stumps maw to get more mulch. I was getting as excited as Cathy. My t-shirt was black with the dirt as lay, pressed close to the earth.

Suddenly, I stopped!

Below me, at the tips of my fingers I felt movement! It was slow movement, moving across my fingers, up my wrist then up my arm. It was slow. I could still feel part of its body still moving on my fingers as the rest proceeded up my arm. Then what ever it was left it’s contact with my fingers as the rest continued up my arm. Now I knew how long it was. I still remained motionless.

By now I knew what it was, but I was still too scared to move. It was a snake! But, what kind? I stared at Cathy and she in turn stared at me, knowing something was happening, but obviously not good.

Finally, the snake’s head head broke the surface, emerging inches from my face. Then slowly it slithered down my shoulder and onto the dirt. From there it gathered steam and disappeared into the detrital debris of the wood floor around us. It evidently did not like the look on my face.

Cathie’s eyes were huge! She did not look at me but kept her eyes fastened on the place where the snake had vanished. I slowly pulled my arm out of the dark stump.

“I think we have enough mulch for today.” and with that started to stand. Cathy pulled her eyes from the dirt floor and looking at me, slowly nodded.

Gathering the now full black bag, I started back to our house, Cathy a short distance behind me, a very short distance behind. Once on the house grounds, I went to the garden hose and started to was myself off. Cathy took the bag of mulch up very carefully and placed it at the door of the garage. Each of us then began doing something else. I don’t remember what it was, but whatever it was, was something very different than what we had been doing.

As far as I know, she never told her brother about our trip to the dark woods