Pines, part two

As noted below, our hardy ancestors planted evergreens around their rural homes in order to keep the cold winds off the house and to retain warmth. In bigger towns, the houses sat side by side, insulating each other. But in isolated areas, it was necessary to plant pines to act as windbreakers. Today, you can identify many abandoned town sites on the ANF because of the pines planted in neat rows. The three sites that come to mind are Guffey, Corduroy, and Windy City. In two of these ghosts, all that remains is the pines. And in the case of Windy City, the name itself should prepare you for what you'll find remaining there: rows of tall evergreens.

But as I shoveled a narrow path through the snow between my office and my house, for the third time today, it occurred to me that our ancestors had another reason for planting pines. They did it in order to keep the snowdrifts from piling up against their houses. Mounds of snow against the doors would make it impossible to get out, literally snowbound inside your home.

My grandparents used to talk about the fierce winters of the 1930s when they had to climb out of their house from the second story windows, wearing snowshoes. A nice stand of pines would have borne the brunt of such a wintry onslaught, leaving a canyon of protected space between the house and the trees.

Anyhow, here's another shot of Corduroy. Too bad you can't see the creek from the grounds of the old house. You surely could at one time, but now there's too much brush.