Snowblasted Tree

In my state, Aldo Leopold Week is a thing.  Tonight at the library, our county forester held a meeting for those who wanted to start celebrating early (Aldo Leopold week is March 4 - 11).  The library had furnished free copies of Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold's book - for anyone attending.  However everyone there had brought their own copies.  The leader asked why people had first decided to read the book.  I could hear them from where I sat at the front desk.  I'd read it as a kid since it was a book in my parent's library (I think I read every book they had).  Then the group took turns reading aloud a few paragraphs from the book.  They decided to read the 'February' chapter - where he cuts down a dead oak tree and muses as the saw goes through the age rings the things that happened the year that ring formed: the Great Depression, the Stock Market crash, the death of the state's last marten, the arrival of the first starlings.  The group talked about this chapter afterward and then decided to pick another chapter to read - 'June'.   (Told you everyone is looking forward to warmer weather.)   Liked hearing references to pye weed and jewelweed - I remember walking through bunches of them myself.  They read and talked until the library was about to close.  The forester will lead another Aldo Leopold meeting at our library next week.  Maybe I'll pick up a copy of the Sand County Almanac and read it again.