“I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree….” these immortal words from Joyce Kilmer were oft 
spouted by my Dad. His enthusiasm for trees, and nature in general, was passed along to his children like a delightful contagion. And like my father before me I have three favorite trees, all of which were found on Brookwood. They are the white pine, the oak and the birch.
The pine is beautiful, with soft green branches and soft long needles that drop creating a heavenly scented carpet of brown beneath the tree. Loggers love it, it is a valued wood. It grows relatively quickly and is fairly pest free making it a good choice for inclusion in forestry management. But for me it is simply that scent….the tantalizing perfume that tickles my memory and returns me to my happy childhood days.
The oak is a symphony of strength. You can hear it’s music when the winds whistle through it’s great leafy boughs. It’s feet are firmly planted in the ground, supporting it’s awesome spread. The tree towers in the 
wood raising it’s great arms skyward as though reaching for the heavens; bringing with it strength, stability….and the kernal of rebirth, the acorn.
The birch is a lovely white flash in the forest, with a lovely fresh green mantle in the Spring and a gorgeous Autumn coat. The birch has carried generations through the waters of time and been a boone to the needs of everyday items. The peeling white bark offers beauty and is frequently used in basketes and art. It is a relatively short lived tree, but filled with beauty and grace.
There are many other trees that I enjoy, and certainly many others that Dad did. But these are the big three, the ones that I first think of when I think of a forest, the ones that I remember and that I propogate. Indeed, “Only God can make a tree.”
