A long time ago, I posted the picture you see above of an old oak tree in my forest at Roundrock. I knew then that it wouldn’t be standing like this for long, but it managed to hang on. Although I can’t find the post right now (I’m lazy in that way), I suspect I made it more than five years ago. Thus this is how that oak looked let’s say five years ago.

Here is how it looked on my most recent visit to Roundrock:

I took this shot from quite a ways back so you could get the fuller impression. From the looks of the split and the debris around (and in) it, I’m pretty sure the oak fell apart within the last month.

We’ve had some severe storms this spring, but they’re nothing more than can be expected for the Midwest. I’m sure one of the recent storms, the ones that are keeping my lake full so far this season, finally brought this old oak down. Now it can begin returning to the soil all of the resources if found there and from the sun.

Okay, so I didn’t intend for so much time to pass between posts here at Roundrock Journal, but there were some access problems last week (you may have noticed), and life has been hectic.

We were able to get out to our woods two Sundays ago, and we stopped by the pond on our way in to see how mama goose was doing on her nest. She was still sitting on it then, which suggested to me that she must have been near the end of the gestation. I think by now the eggs have hatched, and we probably have goslings swimming about the pond. I’m not sure when we’ll next get out there, but I sure hope we’ll get a look at them when we do.

I’m sure this would not be the first hatch of waterfowl in my forest, but it’s the first one I’ve been aware of, and it makes me feel that my stewardship has been worthwhile. I know. It’s silly in a way. But for me it’s also a big, encouraging, enriching deal. It makes me feel happy and warm inside. So there!

Well, I don’t have a photo of my running kit for you this time because we couldn’t pick up our packets with our bibs until the morning of the race. And what’s a kit photo without a bib, right?

This is a new race for our area (though I understand it’s held in other cities). I probably would not have entered except that it benefits the local Ronald McDonald House, and that’s a charity we have supported for years. Plus, it was a “run” that Libby and I could do together, and after the wonderful disaster of the Whiskey Run 5K we did together, I was ready for something more walker friendly. This run was going to be conducted on the paved hike/bike trail that happens to pass right through our neighborhood.

As the trail runs, the start of the race was about 3.5 miles from my house, so I decided I would run to the event, walk the 5K with Libby (who would drive there), and then run home afterward. (I’m trying to run at least 20 miles each week, and so far there’s only been one week this year when I didn’t reach my goal — and I did manage 18 miles that week — so running to and from the run would get me the last miles I needed to meet my weekly goal. I ended with 23 miles run last week.)

So about an hour before the scheduled packet pickup time, I left my house and found my way to the trail then followed it to the start area. I did not need the whole hour to get there — not even most of it — and I arrived just as the organizers and vendors were unloading their cars. So I sat around in the still cool air, waiting for Libby to arrive. Which she did. And then we approached the picnic table where we could pick up our packets.

It turned out that we weren’t getting bibs for this run. Nor was it to be timed either by chip or by gun. It was just a nice walk on a nice day with a nice lady. I did have my Nike+ watch on, and I recorded our distance and time, but we weren’t out to set any records. In fact, we happened to be the last two people to cross the start line. But as I said, that didn’t matter; we were just out for a walk.

It also happened that we passed three people on our walk, one of whom eventually passed us again, but we were not the last two to cross the finish. We were, however, among the last people to be at the finish area. Most of the other two dozen or so participants had long since finished and left for home. The vendors (both of them) were also packing up by the time we returned.

This was a small event, and I chatted with one of the organizers about it. She said that they’d gotten a late start developing it, and because there were two other Mother’s Day runs in Kansas City last weekend, she didn’t have high expectations for this first time.

It happened that my watch recorded that we’d walked 3.7 miles. A 5K is 3.1 miles. Had this been a timed event, or if runners were going to use their times to qualify for other races, that would have been a serious problem. (Several other walkers noted that their GPS devices recorded the extra distance as well.) But it was a nice 3.7 miles. The charity got some money. Libby and I had a nice walk. And then I ran home, a little more tired, with a more sloppy gait that earlier, but I still set a decent pace and was satisfied with my morning.

I have two 10Ks coming up and another 5K that I’m doing with Libby. It’s called the Color Run, and was you’re hurtling along, people throw stuff at you. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

My northwest corner is the center of a section. I had always thought that must be important, but everyone I’ve mentioned that to dismissed it as a mere technicality. It’s established fence lines, not imaginary lines that make sense only in some specialized maps, that are meaningful.

That’s fine. I can live with that. In fact, we’ve always known that our established fence lines are twenty or more feet from the surveyed lines. When we first tromped on what we would one day call Roundrock, the realtor had said that the surveyed corner was in our neighbor’s pond. I didn’t see much way to divide up a pond, and I certainly didn’t want to be the kind of neighbor who would make a dispute of that kind of thing anyway. My neighbor eventually sold his land, and Good Neighbor Brian became the new owner. He’s the kind of guy you could never have an argument with; he’s just so amiable.

We’d peeked at his pond several times when our feet had carried us to that corner, but it was generally so deeply ringed with cattails that we couldn’t see much from the shore and certainly not out to the middle of it. And what did we expect to see there anyway?

When we were planting the pines on a visit in April, though, the pond was cattail free and I was able to venture over there to have another look. The pond is up, just like our pond and lake, because of the recent rains. But there in the center I saw what you see above: a post rising from the water. Could that be the marking of my northeast corner? The center of the section?

Does it matter? Brian has spoken a number of times of getting his little Bobcat in there to improve the pond. Had he been able to do that in years past (means, motive, and opportunity not always aligning), he’d likely have taken out this post, not knowing what it was (if it was what it was, that is).

So we abide.

There is planting, and then there is re-planting. For our pines this year, it was a job of re-planting. I’d say our pines have been the most successful of our planting adventures at Roundrock over the years. Many of the plants we’ve put in the ground have vanished without a trace. The dogwoods are the best example. Others linger and languish. Those would be the nanny berries. Some, like the button bush, have flourished in a few specific places — above and below the pond — but haven’t made a show elsewhere. But the shortleaf pines have been our success story.

Granted we’ve lost about fifty percent of them each year, but given our record and our limited ability to nurture them at all, I’d say that’s a pretty good ratio. Part of that success is attributable to the fact that we’ve put nearly all of the pines inside fences to keep the marauding deer from eating or thrashing them into nubs. Even so, about half of those fenced-in pines don’t survive. But Pablo has put so much effort and expense into crafting those fenced cages that they become the locations for subsequent plantings when the current occupants are finished with them.

We use chicken wire around a pair of posts to make the fence. (I still use steel fence posts in some situations, but lately I’ve been making posts out of young cedar trees, which reluctantly volunteer to take on the responsibility. I estimated that I have more than a hundred steel posts doing various duties at Roundrock, and when I calculate how much that has cost me over the years, I blanch a bit. So now the cedar posts, which seem to work just as well, at least for this purpose.)

We set the posts, then plant the pine, then wrap the chicken wire around the post, then affix it with zip ties. They’re cheap and quick and versatile. And then when the pines die and we come back to the same spot the next year, we snip the zip, open the fence, plant the pine, close the fence, and zip it tight once again.

I always collect the snipped zip ties. I don’t like leaving them on the ground. That’s litter to my eye. Plus they might foul the blades of a mower if enuf accumulated. (I have mowed around the pines a few times.) Or get ingested by some unfortunate forest critter. What you see in the photo above is just some of the snipped zips from our last planting expedition. On subsequent trips to the pine plantation, I’ve found a few more former zip ties that had somehow fallen out of my pocket or the backpack or my attention. As I said, these things are cheap, but like the steel fence posts, I probably shouldn’t calculate how much I’m spending on them through the years.

What you see in this photo is Danger Island, truly an island now that the lake is full (at the time of the photo at least). And the fenced area you see on the island is where we have (once again) planted a dozen or so shortleaf pine trees with the hope that some of them will survive and give me a little forest there. All of the pines we planted last year died because of the heat and drought of last summer.

That great expanse of water you see in the foreground was our challenge of the day when we planted the pines. This was in mid-April and the water was only slightly warmer than the air, yet we had to pass through both to get the pines onto the island and into the ground. Now, that great expanse amounted to no more than about thirty feet across and two feet deep, but it is near the headwaters of the lake and far from the comfort and convenience of the cozy cabin where we outfit ourselves for our adventures.

I didn’t want to wade through the water with my boots on, but I didn’t want to hike across the rocky ground to that point without them. In the end, I left the boots behind. Libby and I each have a pair of water shoes that have hard soles, and while they don’t provide much in the way of ankle support (always a nice feature when your hiking anywhere in the Ozarks), they can help you get across the rocky, uneven ground without contusions and lacerations on the soles of your feet. That day I was carrying a sharp shovel and a day pack filled with various tools and other gear necessary for planting pines. Libby carried the bucket with the pines, half filled with water to keep their roots moist until we got them in the ground.

Our hike to the water’s edge was without mishap, in part because we’ve covered that ground many times, though we did leave the dogs shut in the cabin. Flike would not have been a problem until we got to the water. I don’t know if he would have wanted to enter the lake with us or fuss and fidget on the shore as we crossed. I am not looking forward to the day when he realizes he can swim and comes back to the cabin (or into my truck) sopping and dripping. Queequeg, on the other hand couldn’t be left behind on the shore. He would wander off while we were across the water since he is a willful little guy. And carrying him to the island with us would be just one more burden to bear. So we made our trek without their help.

I didn’t tell Libby at the time (or since, now that I think about it), but as I stood on the shore waiting for her to catch up so we could wade across, I saw a snapping turtle the size of a turkey platter paddling about in the area where we always cross. An encounter with a beast like that would probably be benign, especially in mid-April when it was still waking from its long nap, but that thing could also easily bite through the thin fabric of our water shoes (and the flesh and bone within) if provoked. For whatever reason, though, the turtle paddled off before we made our way across.

The journey across the water was without mishap. We got the pines into the rocky ground without too much trouble (or even effort) and marked each of them with a pair of round rocks. (When I had the island built years ago, the dozer man simply pushed a lot of gravel into a pile. I didn’t think anything would ever grow on that, but now it is covered with lush grasses and scrub. There are even some trees growing on one side — though my pines haven’t been so fortunate. By mid-summer it will be hard to find the little pines amidst all of the growth. Thus the pair of round rocks beside each, so we can find them later.) Libby later used the bucket to bring some lake water up to them to give the pines a first drink in their new homes.

And so once again we planted hope in the ground. Maybe this year a few will survive. The rain has been well timed in the weeks since then, and the temps have been mild for the most part. Send warm (but not hot) thoughts their way when you have a moment.

I realize it’s gruesome in a way, but I also think this spine that Buck Mulligan no longer needs is beautiful in a symmetrical, work of nature kind of way. When we hike on the south side of our lake, Queequeg always runs directly to this collection of bones. (In fact, for having the blunt little nose of a Pomeranian, he always seems to find the smelly stuff on the forest floor while big old Flike trots blithely past, no doubt looking for a stick.)

I assumed I would leave these bones for the critters to gnaw on, but the last time we were by I thought I might collect them and others like them I’ve found here and there in the woods and do something with them.

My first thought was to clean them and then string them together like a sort of necklace. Then, whenever we have ceremonies at the cabin, someone would wear the necklace with great gravity and purpose and perhaps preside over the ceremony. Or it might be worn by initiates to Roundrock, guests on their first visits and such.

What do you think? When you come to my woods for the first time, won’t you be pleased and proud to wear such a necklace?

I’ve mentioned before that I am slowly building a rock wall behind my wooden cabin in an attempt to create a break should a ground fire ever sweep through my forest. It’s not much of a wall, and its construction is limited to what rocks I can find in the forest and carry back. I’ve found all of the near ones; my rock hunting adventures are taking me farther afield these days, which means carrying them longer distances, so the wall is growing more slowly.

The photo above illustrates what I think is a positive effect of my wall idea. My cabin is off to the right about thirty feet. The combustible leaves seem to have been stopped on the far side of the wall. On the cabin side of the wall there are far fewer combustibles, so should a ground fire ever come along, my thought is that it would run out of fuel once it passes the wall. That’s the idea anyway, but other parts of the wall don’t display this clear demarcation of leaves.

And I wonder if my bright idea might actually be counterproductive. That’s a lot of leaves accumulated behind the wall. More than are on the forest floor randomly in the forest. If a ground fire ever does come along, might it reach these leaves and flare up? Moving from a slow-moving ground fire into a canopy fire? I don’t know.

I try to clear the scrub that grows around the cabin. Not only does that remove more fuel, but it removes what can stop blowing leaves so they don’t accumulate inside the wall. I’ve also taken down a few smaller trees close to the cabin, but they would hardly make a difference in a fire situation.

I don’t know if I’m winning or losing this fight, so I just keep paying my insurance premium.

I realize this is not best photo, but it was the best I could do under the perilous conditions.

What you see is a small island in the pond at Roundrock. (Note that we have a tiny pond near the pine plantation that is not the same as the lake at the other end of our woods.) During most of the year, this area isn’t an island at all, but since we’ve had a wet spring, the pond level is up and the island is formed.

But it’s not the island that I want you to see here. Rather, look closely and you’ll see a goose sitting on a nest on that island. Libby first noticed the goose there two trips ago (more than three weeks past now). For some reason, the goose raised her (?) head as we drove past. Otherwise, I’m sure we would have missed knowing what was happening right there in our little pond. Once we realized what we were seeing, though, I stopped and got out with my camera to get a shot. I crept toward the water slowly, trying to keep trees between me and the goose, but I suspect she (?) knew I was there the whole time. When I got within about thirty feet, her partner, that I hadn’t seen on the side of the pond, began honking at me and swimming my way. I squeezed off the shot and headed back for the truck. I didn’t want to distress them such that they would abandon their nest.

When we were out at Roundrock the next week, she was still on the nest, so I think my interruption was long forgotten.

Canada geese will incubate their eggs for about 30 days. Given that we don’t know how long she (?) had been sitting on them when we first saw her, they might already be hatched, with little goslings paddling about. I’m sure there have been other nests on our pond over the many years we’ve been stomping around, but this is the first one we’ve actually known about. It warms my black and shriveled heart to know that my stewardship efforts (mostly benign neglect) are actually having a positive effect.

The morning came cold but clear. I was determined to wear only shorts and a shirt on this run, as you can see in my customary kit photo above, but the temperature was 45 degrees when I rose. Still, I decided to tough it out and head to the start in such skimpies.

The Trolley Run has been my goal run for a long time. When I began running, just over a year ago, when I could barely run a hundred feet and needed to rest for the remainder of the day if I did, I looked across the months ahead, completely unable to imagine that I could run a whole mile, much less the 3.1 miles of a 5K. But I thought that if I stuck with it and trained hard, maybe, maybe in a year and a couple of months, I could actually run — and complete — the Trolley Run in Kansas City.

The Trolley Run is a big deal here in town. Thousands of runners participate, and whole parts of town are shut down to accommodate it. Everybody has run it. (In fact, even Libby had run it several times back in the day.) And so I thought that it should become my goal; I would complete the Trolley Run and finally be able to call myself a runner without qualifying or apologizing or mumbling.

Thus is became a psychological barrier, a boogie man, a holy grail. In the time since I’d set that goal I have run longer races. I’ve done a half dozen 5Ks, three 10Ks, and afternoon runs that are eight miles or more (usually ending at some watering hole, but only by coincidence). I’m training now to do a half marathon in October, and my goal for 2014 is to complete a whole marathon. (That still looks utterly impossible!) So by the time I stepped up to the starting line at the Trolley Run on Sunday, I had the experience, the knowledge, the support of many new friends I’ve made in the running community, and a day promising full sunshine. All I lacked was confidence.

I had frightened myself into self doubt because I had envisioned this run to somehow be a validator of my running ambitions.

I knocked about the house the morning of the run, nervous, anxious, impatient. I thought about eating something but decided against it. I thought about donning some warmer clothes but decided against that too. When I couldn’t sit around any longer, we got in the car and drove away. As usual, Libby and I got to the starting line far too early, but we weren’t the first ones there by any means. I was to meet some friends for a group photo shortly before the start, but that left a half hour to kill, and the air was still cold outside of the car as we waited for the sun to crest the nearby buildings and start warming the air.

Sometime during the last year, I had learned that the Trolley Run is not a 5K, which would make it 3.1 miles, but a 4 mile run. It goes from the Waldo neighborhood in Kansas City to the upscale shopping district known as The Plaza. They say the course is all downhill, but it isn’t. In the first mile there are three hills you must top. They’re not steep, and they’re not long, but they are there. I knew this from having driven the course the day before. Everyone told me I would set a personal record since the run is down hill “all the way.” All I could think of were those initial hills and the cold and my doubts.

Libby’s plan was to drop me off at the start in Waldo and the scurry down to the Plaza to park and find her way to the finish line to wait for me. Many of the runners had parked their cars at the Plaza and took the courtesy busses to the start, and these throngs were arriving as we waited. So I gave her a kiss and told her to go. Then I jumped out of the car and did a thoroughly inadequate warm-up run to the place where I was supposed to meet my friends. Of the 17 of us, only four showed up for the picture, but we took our photo and wished each other a good run, then we separated to join our waves. I was in the Green Wave, the largest group, comprised of runners decidedly below the elite athlete level, but who would indeed actually run the race. The wave after us was made up of fast walkers, people pushing strollers, and those who wanted to give it a try but might not be able to finish. (Ahead of us were the elites, some of whom subsequently finished the four miles in just over 19 minutes!)

There were more than 8,500 people doing the run, and I was packed in with the mix, near the start. The sun had finally come over the buildings across the street, and I could feel the warmth on my exposed skin. I was still cold, but I hoped that when I started moving, I would warm up.

The elite runners were the first to fly. Our wave was herded toward the starting line then. I turned on my running watch and hoped it would find a satellite before I had to go. It did. And we waited. Then I hoped my watch would not shut itself off before I had to go. It didn’t.

I ran across the starting mats, the sensor tied to the laces on my shoe registering my start, and I quickly found a pace that I hoped I could sustain for the next four miles. People were passing me by the hundreds, but I had expected that. I wasn’t racing with anyone but myself, and I had serious doubts about beating that guy to deal with. The course passes through some very nice neighborhoods of Kansas City, and I have some friends who live there. I hoped they might be among the hundreds of people sitting in chairs on their lawns, ringing cowbells and cheering us on. I did see one person I knew, and we shouted toward each other and waved, but that was after I’d completed only one mile, and I knew I had distance ahead of me.

It’s funny how difficult the painted lines on the street can be to run on. Same with the tar splotches. I began to dread these, but I was hemmed in mostly by other runners, either going at my pace, hurrying past me, or needing to be passed even at my measured pace. The miles were marked, so I knew how far I had gone and how far I had to go, and if they hadn’t been, I could have looked at my watch, but I’ve learned not to do that. It shows both my distance and my pace, and pace has been my enemy lately. Not too slow, but too fast. When I would look at my watch and see how fast I was going (fast for me), I would suddenly get exhausted, telling myself I was pushing myself too hard. So I decided I would just run at a pace I thought I could maintain and not know what the clock number was. (It’s a good thing I didn’t check my pace on the Trolley Run.)

The crowd of runners was thinning around mile two. The faster ones were far ahead. The slower ones and those who were walking by then were behind. People continued to pass me, but I was also passing others. For the most part, though, I was among a crowd of people who were going at about the same speed I was. I have found that to be helpful at times because it allows me to control my pace and even get a break. I was hoping to marshall some energy to burn at the end when I could come blazing across the finish.

Around mile two I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast. I think I would have left it on the road by then. Also at that point I was glad I had decided against putting on warmer clothes. My engine was running by then, and I was sweating enuf to wipe my face with my shirt. It was glorious in a way.

Around mile three — we were well into the true downhill-only part of the run — I got that realization that I was going to finish the race. Can I say this was a watershed moment? Sure, I had done other runs, but the point was I was doing this run. I was meeting the goal I had set for myself a year before. I was knocking down a psychological barrier that meant nothing to anyone else but seemed to mean everything to me. It wasn’t just knowing there were photographers all over the course that made me smile for the rest of the run.

Alas, as we neared the end, the four lanes of the parkway we were running on narrowed into two lanes and the crowd got thicker. Once again I was hemmed in, and though I could maintain my pace, one that actually felt comfortable by that point, I didn’t see much opportunity to turn on the afterburners and really race to the finish line. There were simply too many people, and as we all approached the finish line, the avenue grew narrower as the fencing herded us toward the mats. As I crossed the mats and turned off my watch I pretty much had to stop moving altogether because all of the other runners in front of me had done so. It might have been nice to slow down a bit. I’ve seen this at a few of the other runs I’ve done, and I’m sure it bothers other runners too. If I were in charge, I’d figure out a way to fix this much.

Somewhere in the crowd of spectators Libby was supposed to be waiting. I looked around as I was herded forward. I stopped and had the chip removed from my shoe then gladly took the bottle of water that was offered to me. Libby didn’t seem to be around, and I assumed she had moved to a point where the crowd of exhausted and exultant runners had thinned out a bit, so I made my way there. No sign of her yet, but there was the tent giving away free slices of pizza. And one handing out peanuts and pretzels. And energy drinks. And bananas, and bagels, and the blessed, blessed chocolate milk (for recovery, of course). But still no Libby. I assumed I missed her, so I used the one thing I had carried with me on the run: my phone. (My skimpy running shorts have a tiny inner pocket that perfectly holds my little flip phone.)

It turns out that in my blaze across the finish line, Libby had missed spotting me. (I had worn that bright yellow shirt — a color known as Volt — just so I would be easy to spot among the runners approaching the finish line. But it also turned out that many other runners had had that same idea.) She was still at the start, worrying that I must have fallen along the way since I was overdue; I had told her to expect me to take an hour to run the four miles. We finally met about halfway between the start and the point where I had wandered. Then we moseyed through all of the food booths again. (I ended up eating 3 small slices of pizza, a half of a glazed donut, one whole-wheat roll, a half of a banana, two airline-sized bags of peanuts, and four small containers of chocolate milk. Plus I was feasting on a huge serving of satisfaction.)

What I haven’t mentioned is that shortly after I crossed the finish line, when my vision returned to normal and my breathing didn’t wrack my whole body (and I exaggerate) I did look at my watch. I dared to look at my watch and see my result. For this race, I had adopted a new policy toward my running. Should I find myself getting tired, I would simply slow my pace — to a crawl if I had to — and rest on the run, so to speak. I would not stop and rest, nor would I walk. I would keep running, but I would run slowly if I had to. Thus I didn’t expect to find a really great pace for this run because, especially in the first two miles, I slowed myself several times. A common phenomenon at such runs is to get caught up with the energy and start out too fast, keeping pace with runners who are much stronger than you are. I tried very hard not to fall victim to this, but I don’t think I succeeded since the first two miles were exhausting. My watch would tell me the truth.

And the truth was . . . I have set a new personal record for a 5K and averaged a really fast pace (for me) over the whole 4 miles of the Trolley Run! I am not a fast runner, but I am a faster runner. I hit a pace that I never would have thought was possible. This is big stuff for me.

I broke through a psychological barrier on Sunday. I faced and achieved a goal that has spooked me for more than a year. And in doing so, I also showed myself that I can push myself harder and faster and farther and better.

And then I went home and took a nap.