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Watching Woods Fill Up With Snow
Written By: Lance Hardin - Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust | Issue: December 2024 | Photograph By: Andrew Renfro
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect upon the natural treasures entrusted to us and our posterity.
“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.”
The opening lines of Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening are well-known to most readers.
On “the darkest evening of the year,” the travelling narrator takes the time to still his horse and contemplate the beauty of the forest slowly filling with “downy flakes.”
Remembered responsibilities eventually interrupt his introspection, however, prompting the traveler to resume his journey.
December can be a time of a reflection, but one that is buoyed by the knowledge that the rebirth of Spring begins in the final days of December as the shortening days once again begin to lengthen. It is a natural time to reflect on goals achieved and opportunities missed, and use the wisdom so gained to plan for the warmer days ahead.
I like to think that Frost’s poem eloquently captures the challenges and possibilities of land conservation, reminding us to be intentional in our appreciation of our natural surroundings, but also cognizant that we all have responsibilities that include doing our part to help conserve these special places.
2024 was a productive year for the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust; at the time of this writing, we are on track to add more than 200 acres to the 4,200 we already conserve. We successfully applied for re-accreditation; a status achieved by less than one-third of all land trusts. We hosted and led dozens of educational outreach events and engaged with more than a thousand participants; I hope you were one that joined us to watch the solar eclipse on Sunset Rock, learned with us on a wildflower walk, found one of our lectures at the Village Nature Series to be insightful, read with us in our community book club, or hiked to watch the sunset on Big Bear Pen Mountain.
With your help, know that in 2025 HCLT will continue to find new ways to save our unique place for future generations.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
May your final days of 2024 be full of blessings.
