Wonders Unseen in Plain Sight

A few months ago, Spring seemed to have arrived early, but when the calendar rolled on into October, Winter reclaimed our Mountains.  The rains we had wished for so fervently began to seem endless - the parched grass and gardens suddenly flourished in a tide of verdancy and blossom, and lower parts of our yard began to squelch underfoot - the frogs loved it, though, as did our Magpie landlords, when the earthworms were forced up to the surface to swim for high ground.

Now, as the final month of Spring approaches, and the soft green leaves burst from the twigs of Plane and Oak and Alder, Summer has charged onto the scene, and the many scaly and feathered denizens of our little vale are getting their sunbaking done early, before the sun begins to bite too hard.

Earlier, as I walked to the village shops, I found one of our resident Magpies "spread-eagled" on a patch of dry mulch at the foot of the hedge.  For one horrified moment I looked at a pile of ruffled, outstretched, black and white feathers that looked like it had been put to its rest with a cricket bat, but as soon as I spoke, his head rose.  He looked over one fluffed up shoulder as if to say "do you mind?" and settled back to his repose in the sunshine.  He was in the shade when I returned, quietly practicing a tune for future display.

I was reminded of a thought that comes to me around this time every year.  What a wonder it is to be able to walk down a tree-shaded avenue when the sun is casting so much heat in my direction; if it weren't for those delicate green membranes that stretch out from twig and branch to capture that sunlight, life would be far less pleasant.

The sunlight that would make the pavement too hot to walk upon, or sear the grass and herbs that lurk in the coolness beneath the spreading tree-branches, is caught and broken up by that fragile leaf. 

Some is thrown back into the air to give us the lush greens that delight our eyes, and some is locked up in chemical bonds that join simple molecules of water and carbon dioxide into basic sugars, a result of the photosynthetic micro-factories that make up so much of each leaf.

How much of that heat does a leaf gather from the sunlight and conceal in the valence bonds of the sugar it creates? 

Put a match to a dried leaf, or to a pile of leaves, come Autumn, and warm your hands by the flame for a while - quite a bit, isn't it? The leaves feed the twigs and branches, and build a world so different from the one that would exist without them.  Truly wonderful stuff, all that heat captured and stored safely for future use as food for caterpillars, or sheep, or cattle - or as mulch to nourish and nurture other plants.