Beech Leaf Buds

The beech leaves will be coming on soon.  The old coppery leaves of younger beech trees stay on long into the winter.  Then one day in early spring, the leaves turn ghostly white and start to fall.   Within a few short weeks, coppery needles form at the end of every twig.   Those are this year's new leaves.  

Carved Letters

In our iris bog, there stand two enormous beech trees.  

Enormous,  I tell you.

They are old.  The tops are starting to come down and we can tell that they are starting to hollow out.   A spring bubbles up from beneath the roots of one of them. 

And one day, on close inspection, we noticed that about seven feet up, some markings on the tree.

That's a CW on the left and a big K on the right.  It looks like K's knife was a little sharper. 

I wish they'd put the date, too. 

There were two K's who grew up on this place in the 1930's and 40's.   I wonder which one left his mark.  And who was CW?