anavlog

Back in the late '70s, when my folks constructed the home where I'm currently living, there wasn’t a forest around. Instead, the land was an abandoned cow pasture overgrown with scraggly grass and wild weeds. Before breaking ground for their building project, my parents started planting saplings, which have since flourished under care spanning four decades plus seven years. This transformation turned what once seemed like just another patch of scrubland into a thriving woodland. As a kid, this growing expanse went by the name "the garden," suggesting something cultivated and orderly—a space distinctly influenced by human hands. Over time though, as nature took hold more strongly, we came to refer to it simply as "the forest." It became less about cultivation and more about letting natural processes take precedence; one that required occasional intervention from us—trimming branches here, clearing fallen leaves there—but mostly left alone except when encr...