Why, I ask the little dog, did someone whack down the plants bordering this mountain meadow path? It must have been dramatic when the gas powered cutting machine severed flowers, grass, berry bushes, and finger sized alders. I search the resulting debris for survivors and find almost ripe blue berries, still green blades of grass and fading flowers.

A few feet away from the havoc the weight of a flower, a white hedgehog shaped thing, bends over the thin grass blade that nurtures it. A white orchid still flowers next to the living grass. Joy after sorrow?

After the shock, I tell myself that it’s a small, necessary thing. Without the destruction, nature would close over the path and block our only way onto the meadow. I wouldn’t be able to watch the sun favor a Mt. Robert’s avalanche chute with a thin shaft of light or hear a falcon’s cry over the racket of ever present blue jays. But, that’s the way with man in nature. Nature always pays the price of our enjoyment.