Living Trees calm and rejuvenate me

Hi
If I could type as I drive, I'd probably be writing a post every other day. When I'm driving, I listen to the radio almost all the time, but occasionally something will occur to me so the radio goes off and I take the time to ponder.
Today, no driving but something I don't tackle too often - housework! Not my favourite occupation and it seems as soon as I start in one room, there's something more urgent in another. And, of course, frequent breaks so that I can pull a book off the shelf & read for 5 minutes. I don't know where I bought this book, but I'm sorry I haven't opened its pages until today.

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It's a book you dip into and fits my mood perfectly. As you may know, my husband, Willie, has been attending events organised by the Irish Timber Growers Association for the past few years. I began to join him about 18 months ago and resurrected a love of nature and trees in particular.
Growing up, there was no shortage of trees and I loved going into the small wood on the farm in the middle of which is a disused quarry. It always fired my imagination. Who planted the original wood; who used the stone because this quarry is tiny compared to modern quarries and there's another in the next field equally small? Why wasn't more stone taken?
There were foxes and owls, the occasional pheasant and plenty of rabbits, wood pigeons and other birds. and I often wondered if I'd ever see a badger there but that didn't happen. It was my Dad who began to teach me the names of the trees and this continued in Girl Guides:  beech; oak; holly; ash; elm and plenty of sycamore. Don't eat the fungus and always wash your hands when you get home. nothing was planted as far as I remember; the trees just grew.
In the middle of the wood, you could hear the wind whistle around the outside of the wood as though it was trying to find a way in, and the different trees rustled and whispered like they were having a chat. I don't ever remember being afraid in the wood if I wandered away from Dad as he used the chainsaw to cut timber for the fire. Rarely were trees felled by him; he would use what had fallen naturally; it was enough. It was as though the trees were protecting me! In other parts of the farm, especially near our home, we would climb the trees but in the wood, it just wasn't done. We played hide and seek and chased each other as all kids will, and sometimes we'd just sit and enjoy the different leaves and the sun as it peeked through the canopy, and tell each other stories.
Walk through any woodland and the stresses at the beginning will have calmed to some degree by the time you get to the other side. At least that's my experience. The trees are therapists - there to listen & non judgemental.
Yesterday, we had a very little snow, but I just had to take a photo to remember this relatively unusual event.
Finally, we would do well not to forget this solemn responsibility:
'Trees, forests, and other forms of life - you have not inherited them from your forefathers, you have borrowed them from your children yet to be born. Their preservation, their enrichment, is the solemn responsibility you bear' - American Indian tradition - (from Gospel of the Living Tree by Roderic Knowles)