We took Steve outside of Harbin for the weekend.
Yesterday and tonight, he wrote to a friend:
"I liked going to the mountains. I saw many trees and a river with rocks. I walked on rocks by water and touched the river. I was afraid.
"I saw a bird nest in a tree trunk with nine eggs of the Chinese merganser.
"High trees are beautiful in the forest where Daddy was lost for two hours. I sat with Mama and looked for Daddy to come back from the trees. I understand the forest is big.
“Let me tell you how much I like the cabin in the forest where I stayed with Mama. I could see far in every direction. I could hear birds and rain.
“I wish I could take you there.”
Steve and Liying were waiting in a cabin at the end of the road, while I went with two Chinese and two other foreigners on a walk through a forest with Korean pine, spruce and other trees that have never been cut. I was usually at the end of our straggly group, looking at flowers and listening to winter wrens. Crawford was busy looking for pine nuts. He had to work very hard, because many old cones of Korean pine lay on the ground, but squirrels and other creatures had eaten almost all the nuts.
Our trail was very easy to follow, until we came to a big, wooden statue of the mountain god (a Daoist shrine). After that our trail climbed onto a boardwalk and went a short distance but suddenly shrank into a small trail. We followed that, and it got smaller and smaller until there was nothing. The trees and hills hid all the views, and there were no sounds but nuthatches piping and the rain.
It was strange, unexpected, to realize we were truly lost.
We had a very interesting two hours, and felt the old forest in a very different way. Many of these trees had stood here hundreds of years, their trunks and branches grew moss and lichens. What about us? What would it be like to sleep here? Or to really look for pine nuts, since we had nothing to eat?
All of us work in wetlands, we are so used to wide, open views. The trees crowded all round. Now and then as we walked, at a bigger tree or tall dead stub, or where tussocks of sedge grew in water, we wondered, have we been here before? Everything looked the same and different.
I told the others the story of Hansel and Gretel, how they left behind a trail of bread crumbs so they could find their way out. But birds ate all the bread. The two children, lost in the forest, were captured by a witch who lives in a candy house.
But at last we glimpsed a narrow metal tower, almost like another tree, and behind so many trees we could hardly see it. We followed that glimpse through bushes and thorns, and came onto a big trail. Soon we were walking out of the forest, back at the cabin at the road end.
We even had a hot although late lunch.
"I liked going to the mountains. I saw many trees and a river with rocks. I walked on rocks by water and touched the river. I was afraid.
"I saw a bird nest in a tree trunk with nine eggs of the Chinese merganser.
"High trees are beautiful in the forest where Daddy was lost for two hours. I sat with Mama and looked for Daddy to come back from the trees. I understand the forest is big.
“Let me tell you how much I like the cabin in the forest where I stayed with Mama. I could see far in every direction. I could hear birds and rain.
“I wish I could take you there.”
Steve and Liying were waiting in a cabin at the end of the road, while I went with two Chinese and two other foreigners on a walk through a forest with Korean pine, spruce and other trees that have never been cut. I was usually at the end of our straggly group, looking at flowers and listening to winter wrens. Crawford was busy looking for pine nuts. He had to work very hard, because many old cones of Korean pine lay on the ground, but squirrels and other creatures had eaten almost all the nuts.
Our trail was very easy to follow, until we came to a big, wooden statue of the mountain god (a Daoist shrine). After that our trail climbed onto a boardwalk and went a short distance but suddenly shrank into a small trail. We followed that, and it got smaller and smaller until there was nothing. The trees and hills hid all the views, and there were no sounds but nuthatches piping and the rain.
It was strange, unexpected, to realize we were truly lost.
We had a very interesting two hours, and felt the old forest in a very different way. Many of these trees had stood here hundreds of years, their trunks and branches grew moss and lichens. What about us? What would it be like to sleep here? Or to really look for pine nuts, since we had nothing to eat?
All of us work in wetlands, we are so used to wide, open views. The trees crowded all round. Now and then as we walked, at a bigger tree or tall dead stub, or where tussocks of sedge grew in water, we wondered, have we been here before? Everything looked the same and different.
I told the others the story of Hansel and Gretel, how they left behind a trail of bread crumbs so they could find their way out. But birds ate all the bread. The two children, lost in the forest, were captured by a witch who lives in a candy house.
But at last we glimpsed a narrow metal tower, almost like another tree, and behind so many trees we could hardly see it. We followed that glimpse through bushes and thorns, and came onto a big trail. Soon we were walking out of the forest, back at the cabin at the road end.
We even had a hot although late lunch.
Those days, we joked around a lot. Because Mei Mei’s specialty was nature tourism, we decided we should use photos from our walk to make a brochure and attract more tourists to this place. That very strange photo below came after Crawford found three ticks crawling on his pants. It was not posed!
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