From the barn to the river was not that long a journey, even now when my steps had slowed.  As a thousand times before in my mind, I now made the journey with these two young souls I loved.

As I had done, many years before they had opened the creaking old barn door, now sagging more used to sag, and the red paint now a little more faded.  Into their hands I placed the young saplings that I had nurtured from acorns some time ago.  I carried the shovel and some sweet rolls that their mother had made lovingly, so expectantly last night.

About thirty minutes of footsteps did it take to cross the back pasture,through the maple woods, down the slope of Hunter's Hill, across Gould's Meadow, and finally to the banks of the slow and broad Chateauguay.

And there were, the ancients oaks, six strong oaks still lingering in their living, holding on, holding on. 

But before we were about the work of adding two more oaks to the creation, we went about the task of getting lost in that forever place that eists between the tic and the toc of the clock.

And as we sat together, an old man in his autumn and two boys in their early springtime, we leaned our ears into the grey, grey bark of the tree, that we might listen once more to the whispers of the Old Man Oak.

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