Failures

I went to see Baugo again on a Monday after work. He was sitting on his front porch reading a book; his dog rushed out to greet me, tail wagging. 

Baugo motioned me up to the porch with a smile, motioned at the rocker beside his own.

”Hello again. What brings you up here?”

”I had another question about my failure,” I said.

”You think too much about this, you know.” He looked off toward the tree tops.

”I know I do,” I said.

Then he didn’t say anything for what seemed like a long time. We just sat there, I petting his dog, he contemplating the wind in the maples or the clouds. Who knows?


”Will it ever get any better?” I asked.

He didn’t look at me when he replied. He simply said to the treetops: “Seasons come and seasons go. You know the wind in those trees makes them grow stronger? Grow a tree in a windless place and it doesn’t spread its roots like these have. The weight of the snow in winter, too, makes the branches grow stronger.”

He paused, but I knew there was more.

”Sure, some times the wind or the weight is too much and branches fall. But even so, the tree is usually stronger overall after a bit of nature’s pruning.”

He stood up then. “I got some branches I neeed to haul from the storm last week,” he said. “Sawed them up earlier today. Just need now to put them on the pile, let ‘em dry out. Mak a pretty good fire later this fall or winter.”

I thought he might have some point in all this.

”You know ash is good to sprinkle on the garden in spring? Not too much, just enough. Rake it in, let it work. I use mine from the branch piles I burn most years. Better than fertilizers you buy in the store.”

He walked off the porch and toward the old pick-up in the drive.

”You coming?”

I followed him. I guess I could see his point.