Before ten years ago, we never knew we had pin cherries. It was only after the pines began to fade from age and drought, that the little stand of trees took root. After we saw them we noticed the tall sinuous parent tree to the east, one we had remarked for its trunk shape but never knew by name.

The way they told us was their blossoms in the spring, shed in white flurries like a second snow when the wind came in over the lake from the south. Their deep copper bark contrasts beautifully with their early chartreuse foliage and that of the maples and juneberries nearby.

We should have known they were there, downhill from our vegetable garden, waiting in soil created from forest duff on top of sand left by glaciers, but we never saw them until the blossoms came.

Pin cherries like cold climates, grow like weeds and die early. They take no chances on reproduction, spreading both by birds who devour their berries and by sending roots beneath the soil to the next open spot of sun and rain they can pop up to meet.

Besides being more pit than pulp, they are related to roses, I found out. Also to juneberries, chokecherries, black cherries and raspberries, all of which grow wild in our untended woods.

Good travels, pin cherries. Find a niche, stick with it, make yourselves useful. Enjoy the company of others, all of us here for a little while.