And what is this? I was visiting my child in Estonia this past April. They had to work on several of the days and so I scanned about for seeds, shells, rocks, the usual things I gather. I noticed that there was an ancient (not rock-time scale) tree, the Tamme-Lauri oak, some 800 years old, about 2 hours inland from where I was staying in Parnu. To it I drove, very relaxed countryside, and when I arrived there was no one the there, just a field and what you might call an Ent.

Those are storks on the lesser posts.

Very wondrous. How could one not want to gather acorns? I walked around the tree in a reverent and studious manner, searching the ground for same. Nada. April is not the best month to gather acorns. Daunted I was not, however. I queried my inner Druid as to how to proceed. “Eat one of the fallen leaves” came back. Of course. Crisp and crunchy it was. Again I walked around it, more reverently and studiously. A dozen unbroken and unblemished!

As I exited this vision trance a stray man had arrived to behold the tree. His examination was most cursory, he came up, looked at it thoughtfully for a minute or two, and set himself to walk off. Being unable to speak Estonian at all I raised my hand and signaled to him. It seemed such a correct human interaction to wordlessly give him one acorn.

It’s relatively flat country out there, not much rock, some glacial granite. I used a fallen branch of the tree to dig out a small watermelon sized piece of red granite. Also, amazingly, looking around at the few other rocks in the field I found an area where there were empty snail shells. The trifecta of rock, shell, seed.

Back in America I have an indoor garden where I nurture plants that have caught my interest. Acorns planted and –

utterly joyful. Actually there are two that sprouted. Mid-coast Maine is not so climatically different than Estonia but getting an 800 year lease, I have no idea how to do that. All in all this was a signature positive experience. I have trepidation about getting it outside and protecting it for the rest of my lifetime. Such is the nature of caring and trying I guess.