A farmer's favor

The grinding of the axe could be heard for miles. It happened once a year, and, when heard, each tree knew that day could be its last. It is a special day where one farmer will give the opportunity for a tree to decide what it will become.

It was a sunny day with a few puffy clouds hovering by, and, carried by the wind, you could hear the voices of the trees coming from the forest. It was the type of conversation that, if overheard, would draw you closer. The trees were deciding their own fate. Well, at least the fate that they hoped for.

You see, it rarely happens that a tree decides what it becomes after its death. Some are turned into works of art that are passed down for ages, others are turned into houses that protect many things, and many are burned as firewood. Scott got turned into firewood last summer. Nothing is more embarrassing for your saplings than being chopped into firewood. But, it just so happens that a farmer, who lives far past the edge of town, walks deep into the forest once a year and asks one tree what it would like to become. The farmer then does his best to grant a tree this one request. And thus, each year the trees each prune themselves and stand as tall as they are able to be the chosen tree.

“I’ve got it. If the farmer asks me, I’m going to say that I want to become ten thousand pencils. That way, I will have helped to write countless stories, and, if I am lucky, some of those stories will last forever.” Jamie, the Ponderosa pine said.

“Ehh, are you sure?” William the willow asked. “You won't have much say in what is being written. What if what’s written is detestable?”

“Yeah, that would not be cool,” admitted Jamie, “but I would have good odds that, good or bad, a text might go down in history, or even a sketch for that matter.”

“I wanna jam out, ya know? I want to hold a rhythm and REALLY feel it! If the farmer chooses me, I’m going to be made into the finest instruments the world has ever seen. I’ll be that tambourine banged against the musician's hips, the keys on a resounding piano, and drums you can dance the samba to!” Beaker the beech tree said enthusiastically.

“Oh course you do,” Emery the ash tree said. “I think this is birdshit!”

“Oh here we go again...” audibly sighed the others.

“This is fruitless! I don’t want to be any of these things we talk about each year. Well, some of those things do sound kind of great, but honestly, the farmer only chooses one tree out of all of us. It’s more likely that someone else will chop us down. I don’t want to be made into something that someone else chooses.”

“Come on Emery,” Sarah the elder oak tree interrupted. “We are all just looking ahead to the future that is coming for all of us.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t want to be a table, or an easel, or a boat, or a ship, or a wagon, or a plane. I’m an ash tree. The bees sleep on my twigs, and the birds nest in my branches. In the fall, squirrels hide their mushrooms in the crevices of my arms, and each spring I blossom as if I am alive again for the first time. My roots stretch deep, and I feed the offspring that has come from me. Am I not perfect the way that I am? And when I die, do I have to live on? The atoms that are in my bark and my sap are the same ones that were created in the collapse of ancient stars. After I am dead, these same atoms that make the molecules in me will be broken down and made new in the woods around me: in the soil, in the fungi, in worms, in the beetles, in leaves, in the birds, in the rivers, in mammals, and so on and so on forever. I don't want to be made into a chapel that reaches into the sky. I want to live my life, and, when it is over, I want to die.”

“Well, if all of that is true, wouldn’t you like to become railroad cars to transport atoms all over the world?” Sarah asked sarcastically.

“Sarah, you’re so …dense” said Emery, holding back the sap from his eyes.

“Quit being so dramatic, Emory,” William entered. “The farmer comes every year. I'd like to have a choice if it’s possible. So many of the fallen before us have been carved into spears and chopping blocks and kindling and all types of oddities. I want to hope that I won't just be worm food but that I’ll be the frame that holds a painting that warms the heart of everyone who sees it when they enter my room. I want to be prepared, you know. I want to hope that some stranger just doesn’t walk by and cut me down because she needs to warm herself at night. Every dawn each of my leaves turn its face to the rising sun and feel its warmth. Can’t I be that same warmth if I'm sculpted into an art piece that is cherished by all who behold it, center stage in every museum?“

Jamie sniffled and cried out, “I don't want to die! Sorry, I think I’m just realizing that even if I am every paint brush that paints every masterpiece in the next one thousand years, I am still dead. It’s not truly me that paints them. I want to live. I want to live forever. I love the trees that I have grown up next to. Every storm we have made it through and every fire that we have survived has just made life more pure, and, each moment I live, I just want it to last longer. I don't want to waste away. I want to taste every second and amplify every subtle breeze and gentle rain. I don’t want to be a reflection of something. I just want to be.”

Just then a rustling was heard in the bushes behind them. It was the farmer. “Hello everyone.”

A cold breeze turned over the leaves as it swept through the branches of those who stood around him. There was a silence as he started to look around at those who were just discussing the possibility that the farmer might choose one of them, and, out of the whole wide forest, the farmer appeared and in his hand was an axe.

After seeing the farmer, each tree busheled up a bit and stood straight. Each tree shone it’s greenest leaves forward and truest bark. Each one knew it might be both the day it might die and the day it might live forever.

The farmer spoke, “Each year, I walk a ways into the forest and let one tree give its say as to what it becomes. I know no other woman or man who takes on this same task. Each year the forest becomes smaller with every encroaching town. If I choose you, you can accept my offer to honor your wishes or you can choose to live out your life.” The farmer then looked hard and long at the Ponderosa pine, the willow, the beech tree, the ash, and the oak.

“What say you, Ponderosa?” asked the farmer. “What do you choose to become?”

Jamie didn’t know what to say or how to act.

“I have been waiting for you to ask me each summer that rolled upon me. Now that you're here… I don't know what to say.”

The farmer saw a beautiful being grasping the difficult decision that lay before it. He then sat on a stump, his axe leaning against his leg, to give her time to decide. If the tree decided not to be cut down, it might live many more years before it dies. It also might get struck by lightning the next day, or a timber company might come through and turn it into toilet paper.

"Why do you do this?" Jamie asked the farmer.

"I do this for hope. So much of life is out of our control. We don't decide where we grow up or a lot of the things that happen to us. We go through storms in life but if you have hope for a better future where you can just be yourself, it gives you the strength to get through those storms.

So much is taken in the world. This is the one thing I can do to give back. The forests provide the very air we breath. I work all year to craft a chosen tree into whatever they decide to be made into. This way, I am able to give one life the power over it's future. It is a way that I can show respect to the life around me."

Everyone was quit for a moment after the farmer had spoke. Minutes passed by.

"Alright," Jamie said, "I think I have decided what I want to do. I do not want to be made into something. I want to live. I want to live my life as a tree in the forest and no matter what forces of nature may come against me, I will stand tall against them."

"That is a noble decision," the famer said. "That means that someone else will then be chosen.

What about you, Ash tree?"

"Me?!" Emery said in surprise. "I think I want to help. I am already happy with what I am. Maybe by helping you, I can help others be happy with what they are. If you make me into a barn, I will be the shelter you can use to shape the wood as they wish."

So, the farmer did just that. Each piece of ash was carefully shaped into what would be the space that the farmer needed to work. Each year, they say the grinding of his axe can still be heard. and that he spends his days with the the trees in the forest.