The woodlot.

AMID THE SOOTY DESTRUCTION OF A FIRE, THE NEW OWNERS MAKE SOME DISCOVERIES.

IT'S JUST A SMALL woodlot--maybe five acres, practically in town. It was the primary reason we chose this 11-acre tract. Deer wander into the meadow, stop to drink at the creek, and sometimes come up to browse on the white Dutch clover we planted over the drain field near the house.

An October fire roared through right after we bought the land, burning most of the tamarack and red fir, charring the pine, and cleaning up 50 years' worth of underbrush and deadfalls. My wife Marie cried, and I swore and vowed to sell the acreage at a loss, but the next spring, green shoots showed through the black ash, and now, three years later, the rejuvenation continues.

The flowers returned first--fireweed, queen's cup lilies, bluebells, and meadow rue buttercups. Next, a few taller plants like snowberries and flat-topped spiraea, stinging nettles and thimbleberry, tentatively populated what still looked to me like a sterile moonscape. "It's not the best, but we'll give it a chance," they seemed to decide, and that's what Marie and I decided, too, building a log home on a high peninsula above the destruction.

That spring, sooty survivors of red osier, dogwood, quaking aspen, and Oregon grape found moisture and somehow managed to push their roots deeper into the rocky clay beneath the ash. New shoots budded and burst, and Marie and I walked among them in awe like astronauts on an alien planet, leaving distinct footprints in the ash after a rain, kicking up clouds of choking gray dust when the wind had sucked away the dampness.

Quail live in the slash piles now, and mourning doves roost in the charcoaled snags. I've seen a few grouse, and a hen pheasant reared a brood of seven in the tangle of nettles and lupine by the creek. A red-tailed hawk cruises the transition zone between forest and meadow, usually hunting diligently but sometimes seeming to ride the updrafts for the pure joy of being alive. How we envy her!

Three times now we have watched moose here, and not long ago, a cougar the color of oat straw flowed along the edge of the woods with that confident, purposeful carriage that seems to say, "Yeah? So whaddaya gonna do about it?" We were too thrilled to be uneasy. From the porch swing 80 yards away, four of us argued over the binoculars and forgot to scramble for the camera.

This woodlot nurtures my soul. Dawn sits on the crest of Pease Mountain, admiring its reflection in our little creek, throwing shadows from the white fir and aspen recklessly into the meadow. By then, the raucous black-and-white magpies have assembled in the cottonwood snag by the water, plotting their daily assault on the dog's food dish. The great blue heron stands poised optimistically in the quiet water by the cattails. We have never seen him catch a fish there; in fact, we've seen precious few fish in the creek. But he must know something we don't, for he's there every morning.

I sit on the porch and sip coffee as the shadows shorten and bend to my left; I'm supposed to be working, but, smug in the secret knowledge that this is life, I deal very nicely with the guilt.

In a way, the woodlot has helped me deal with my own mortality. Before the fire, a giant pine with a tip as sharp as an arrow stood in the center of everything and proudly guarded the landscape. Invincible. After the cleanup, though, the blackened trees behind it were salvaged for firewood, and the big tree now seems to have been repositioned. It stands alone on the back edge, rather forlorn, I think, like an old buck deer that has lost the fight and relinquished his harem.

A friend from town, a timber cruiser for the Forest Service, told me right after the fire that there were "five 16s" in the tree--about $700 worth of logs on the inflated market. "It's been weakened anyway," he said. "Probably die within the year. If the moths don't get it, the winds will."

I told him the money would be nice but there's no arguing with a chainsaw; a tree that has been around that long deserves a fighting chance. A few weeks ago, however, Marie called my attention to the rust-colored needles on the top half. I'm sure it is terminal. Soon the rust will be all the way down, and in another year there will be no life at all.

My friend the timber cruiser noticed it, too, and told me it's still a $700 tree if I act quickly. I'm going to let it stand, though. It has something to do with the wonders it has seen and how I want to be treated when my value is no more than the pennies worth of minerals in my body.

A tree that large has outlived anyone I ever knew. It has secrets to share. When its branches are bare, I'll drop it into the clearing by the slash piles, or, better yet, the wind will do the job for me. Then it will be cut and split and hauled to the shed, and on cold winter mornings when the icicles can't drip and the snow is so dry it squeaks with my footsteps, Marie and I will sit by the wood-stove, sip coffee, and listen to the mutterings in the flames.

Yes, it's only a small woodlot, maybe five acres, practically in town. But its lessons are many and its demands are few. Oh, that I had found it sooner.

ALAN LIERE is a writer/photographer who now sends us his creations from a woodlot not far from Spokane, Washington.