We've been planting lots of trees here on the farm, hazels, willows, cherries, rowan, blackthorn, hawthorn and, mixed in here and there with them all, some oaks...
How
amazing to hold in your hand for a moment a baby oak, which might grow into a mature tree and live for anything up to a thousand years, like the old oaks just found on
Churchill's estate. How much human nonsense have they lived through? It also made
me think just how wonderful these oaks are, like ships of the landscape. True
treasure ships, roaring in the wind as they travel through time, sheltering
such rich abundancies of life. True gold, not the vain gold of oligarchs,
bishops and princes. Even after death these golden-hearted oaks go on serving
us with their stout timber, in framework that can last for hundreds more
years...
