Cold morning. Sap sleeping. Good time to tidy. I brought my little trimming blade and my big patience. “Knock-knock,” I told the first low branch. It didn’t answer. That’s fine. Comedy is about warm-ups.

I thinned a tangle over the path so deer wouldn’t duck and bonk. Each snip made a thup against the quiet. At an old maple, my blade tapped the trunk by accident and the tree replied—boonk—like a drum hitting back. I tapped again. Boonk-boonk. The hollow space inside matched me and then made up its own rhythm.

“You’re hired,” I said, and set a beat on the bark with the flat of my paw. Other hollows joined—doonk from a cedar stump, thoom from a downed log, little tok-tok-tok from a row of pine cones I lined up on a rock. The forest didn’t just listen; it answered.

Birds tried the high notes. My belly tried the low ones. I pruned between the beats, letting the music tell me where to cut and where to leave. When a branch swayed just right, I kept it; when two crossed and argued, snip, peace.

By noon, the understory felt open, neat, and somehow awake, like a room after you slide the furniture to the edges for dancing. The maple gave me one more boonk for the road. I thumped back. Good set. We’ll tour in spring.

I woke up to snow frosting every fern and stump. I scooped a pawful and squinted. “Now who made all this?” I asked the forest. Nobody answered, which meant I had to investigate.

I checked the sky—too high. The creek—too cold. The squirrels—too busy pelting each other with it to explain. Finally, I decided to make my own batch. I mixed crushed pine needles, moss, and a handful of sparkle dust from a spiderweb. It didn’t work, but it smelled amazing.

Then a single snowflake landed on my nose and melted into a perfect laugh. Maybe that’s the secret ingredient—wonder. I grinned. Some recipes aren’t meant to be copied, just enjoyed.

The Forest smells like soup right now. Everyone’s cooking something. The chipmunks brought seeds roasted on hot stones; the owls contributed silence (goes with everything). I carved a table out of fallen logs, wide enough for whoever wandered by. Turns out “whoever” is quite a crowd.

We shared what we had—bark bread, berry stew, a few questionable mushrooms that might have been jokes. Between bites, I realized the trees were humming. Maybe from the steam. Maybe from thanks.

I stood up and raised my mug. “To the roots,” I said. “They hold us even when we forget where we stand.” The pines rustled approval. Gratitude echoed in every crunch and giggle. Nights like this feed more than bellies—they remind the Forest it’s already full.

The Forest woke up stiff, like it slept funny on its roots. I brought a basket of stubby gourds and a pocket full of dry needles for easy starts. Not for a big show—just to warm up the paths critters actually use.

I set lanterns near the fern hollow, the secret-keeping stump, and the joke-telling brook. The squirrels inspected my work with serious faces. Tough crowd. Then they approved with tail flicks. I’ll take it.

I hummed a low tune that sounded like the ground clearing its throat. Sunbeams finally squeezed through the branches and made polite puddles of gold. “There you are,” I said. “Don’t be strangers.”

By the time the breeze found us, the understory felt awake and friendly. That’s all I wanted—light that says, “Welcome.”

I checked the roots today, just to make sure nobody was racing. The Forest doesn’t hurry, and neither should I. Moss takes its time, wrapping around rocks like a cozy scarf. Even the creek hums a slow tune, never missing a beat.

Sometimes I think the world forgets how nice “slow” feels. Everyone wants to see the next tree bloom before the first one’s done yawning. But me? I like the in-between. The stretch, the sigh, the quiet work of growing.

I sat with an old oak that remembers when I was knee-high and clumsy. Its bark still fits my back like it was carved just for me. We didn’t say much—just breathed together until the sun slipped lower and the forest started glowing gold.

Roots don’t rush. They hold. And that’s enough.