mortality

It should no  surprise that the eastern hemlock was my favorite tree growing up.  It ALWAYS provided shade for those trout streams that I fished with my father, ALWAYS embraced the cold and deep swimming hole where I swam as a kid, and ALWAYS  with verdant comfort dotted the winter  landscape scenery of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  When they began to die off in my  backyard of Haywood County, I felt for the first time my own impending mortality.  What…