JONES MOUNTAIN, W.Va.
“Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in “History” from 1841. “She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.”
But late last summer, the well-known air on this mountaintop – always sweet, always delivered by impressive winds – had turned decidedly rancid.
Something was dead. Somewhere. But what? And exactly where in the woods, hidden deep in the thick green brush? Time and winter reveal so many of nature’s secrets. As a walk last weekend yet again affirmed.
The mild weather was the perfect opportunity to assess what needs to be done as the winter turns to spring, but well in advance of leafing. There are freshly fallen trees to cut for firewood. Old rotted trees must be moved to a clearing for cutting and a date with the burn pile.
The new tractor and its front loader will be the perfect tool to root them out, which will make it far easier to keep paths mowed and tidy.
There’s also much thinning to do — not to eliminate the woods, mind you, but to allow the remaining healthy trees to become more robust and to allow for the planting of new and diverse tree species to help ensure the woods’ future.
And it was on that walkabout that the origin of last summer’s horrid smell was discovered: There, underneath the overhang of a large, winter-denuded bush, were the skeletal remains of what appeared to be a full-sized female deer. Only two legs had any flesh remaining.
So, what happened?
It likely wasn’t Chronic Wasting Disease, to date found only in far-off Hampshire and Hardy counties, contiguous counties in the Mountain State’s Eastern Panhandle. But it could have been Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, found in three contiguous counties of this Northern Panhandle’s Appalachian foothills.
Perhaps, too, it was a deer severely injured on a highway. Or an escapee from a hunter’s poor shot. Or a coyote attack. But it also could have been an aged deer whose time had come and it simply sought shelter in which to lie down and to pass.
Whatever the cause, the bones will not be disturbed. Respectfully they will be allowed to sink into the already rich woods loam, eventually making it richer still.
For as it once was written, “Let us permit nature to have her way: she understands her business better than we do.”
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
