In honor of the major (and distracting) tree work being done around here (bye-bye, mulberry with your mice-attracting berries!), I refer you to Robert Frost’s marvelous poem, “Birches.”
"…I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."
And don’t worry—more on my progress with Moby Dick in the coming week, and, just for fun, a fabulous fried chicken recipe!