Anyone who hikes in nature regularly knows that it is not the flashy birds and flowers and butterflies that describe the essential forces at work in the natural world. Rather it is the mosses and lichens and bacteria and other obscure organisms that form the backbone of decomposition and make the cycling of life possible. So while seeing the large, pre-revolutionary war trees is interesting, it is in the routine things one sees while in the midst of a routine hike that form the heart of the natural world. I compare the latter with the truck drivers and farmers and other humans who do the real work while the actors and politicians get the headlines. (Totally skewed priorities of fame and importance of course but that is human nature.) In the mountains around here there are small streams that one can easily jump across which contain native brook trout rarely reaching more than 4 or 5 inches in length. To glimpse one is before it disappears under a rock is like glimpsing some ephemeral apparition, more wild and unspoiled than any other fish around here, and as marvelous in its way as standing beneath a 300 year old tree. I have seen men bushwack off the trail with short, child sized rods to catch these wary fish, despite having to throw them back, because the challenge they offer is far more satisfying than catching hatchery raised fish. In that regard they are one of the few remaining symbols of the wild Pennsylvania that used to exist, so something indefinable will be lost if they die out from pollution, global warming or some other threat. Meanwhile the bacteria and fungi will probably survive and continue their unheralded work all around us.
