A good sense of balance and a certain amount of physical dexterity are definite assets in an outdoor setting, particularly when negotiating forest trails. There's always the prospect of tripping on tree roots or rocks, depending on the terrain, made more problematical in ascents and descents and mostly when the landscape has been subjected to rain and what might otherwise be firm footing becomes fraught with muck.

Forests are always in a state of flux, nothing is static there, things are always in growth or decline mode. Vegetation responds to the environment and to weather patterns and seasons. And over time mature vegetation reaches the end of its life-cycle. Growing things like mosses, fungi, ferns, shrubs and wildflowers come and go constantly, but when trees succumb to old age, disease, insect infestation or extremes of weather conditions, their absence is instantly noted. Where once a good-sized tree dominated a small space of the forest suddenly there is a vacuum. Sometimes part of the trunk still stands while the upper portion has fallen with an earth-shaking thud.

A few days ago we came across the shattered remnants of an old tree trunk that had been standing adjacent a well-travelled part of the interconnected forest trail. The tree had been dead long before it fell, which isn't the fate of all since sometimes trees that look hale can suddenly snap in wild gusts of wind. Had anyone been on the trail at the very time that dead tree had fallen and shattered into great chunks of splinter-edged pieces the outcome for that person might have been dismal.

We come across trees lying directly over the trail from time to time, just as we see trees having broken from their mooring on the forest floor lying perpendicular to the forest floor, their mast held up by the close proximity of other healthy trees, preventing them from falling directly to the ground, though in time they most certainly will, if the surrounding trees can no longer support the dead one for any number of reasons.

During violent weather that arrives suddenly bringing  high, powerful winds or a windstorm bringing along inclement weather conditions, it makes sense to avoid entering the woods. Many years ago, during the great ice storm of 1998 that hit a sizeable portion of southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. we slithered and slid up the street to enter the initial confines of the ravined forest accessible from the time of our street and stood there, listening to great resounding cracks and thuds as the ice burden broke off limbs and trunks of trees in the forest, knowing how foolhardy it would be to venture there at that time.