i go closer and try to estimate its weight by attempting to move it... but its thick trunks and branches are too heavy move even a fraction... and yet some broke off in the impact... it must weigh many tons...

...then i stop to admire a live tree, only about 10 years old... trembling leaves of a living tree spreading in invisible planes supported by twigs and branches from an upright trunk only about 8cm diameter... will it grow to the 30m or so of the nearby trees... it looks to me as if it might for it seems exceptionally well-formed and healthy...

...the difference between life and death: a growing tree, and a tree on the ground... the fallen tree is now a universe for smaller creatures... or else the material for making furniture and houses and even aeroplanes... (i'm reminded of the wooden Mosquito aircraft on which i worked at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield about 1950... and also the Dragon Rapide which was made of wood and canvas... aircraft made of vegetation, dead trees and flax or cotton plants can fly!!...)

...suddenly i'm confronted by Hal Goldie and his 6 Akita dogs (from Japan) resembling huskies ... how patiently they sat (about 5 metres apart from each other) waiting while we talked ... he tells me that he races them in a 3-wheeled vehicle, in Scotland... he says that much of his time is sacrificed to the dogs... 20 years when he could have been sailing boats... and now he's a landscape gardener... he tells me that Hal is short for Halerian, who was a Roman Christian saint... his uncle was named Halerian because he was born a blue baby with not long to live - but he lived to be a strong man!...

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