For a number of years now I've enjoyed a relationship with a particular dead tree that sits twenty feet to the left of my driveway, and about forty feet away from Horse Lake Road. Recently, and sadly, this happy association ended abruptly much as it began, with the unintentional impact of a car's front bumper.

The first incident occurred several years ago just after I purchased a cantankerous old blue car with an automatic transmission. One day, I forgot something inside the house, so I left the car running outside at the top of my steep muddy driveway. When I exited the back door of my house I was surprised to see the car on the lawn resting against the base of a dead Poplar tree.

Close inspection revealed that I left the car in neutral rather than "Park". The car rolled down the driveway and collided with the poplar tree in the middle of the yard. The impact was great enough to snap off the top of the old poplar tree, but thankfully the treetop fell away from the car, only showering the still intact windshield with dry limbs. And thus began my relationship with a dead poplar tree.

Within three weeks of the tree beheading, a pair of Flickers excavated a hole in the stub for a nest, and began raising a brood. The second year the hole was occupied again by Flickers. The third year, the tree stump played nursery to yet another brood of the long-billed, ground-feeding Woodpeckers. The entertainment value was priceless, and inexpensive.

After an initial 3-year flurry of nesting activity, the once lively stump fell silent and sat silent for several years. I thought maybe the punky tree stump had lost its charm, so I built a Flicker-sized bird box and placed it at the top of the tree, hoping to upgrade the tree's bird appeal. I watched and waited but no birds came to look at my renovations.

Then, without fanfare, the Flickers returned two years ago and raised a brood. In 2009 they were back again. Obviously, they were not deterred by the gaping entrance hole I assumed was the cause of years of abandonment. The old stump was still a viable and appealing Flicker nesting place! Unfortunately this winter, the stump took another shellacking that may have ended the poplar tree stub once and for all.

The above incident took place earlier this winter.

Wheneever I feel the outside temperature could drop lower than minus fifteen, I park the car facing up the steeply inclined driveway, so I can plug in at night. The problem with this strategy is that it then becomes necessary to back downhill in the morning, often when it is dark, and sometimes with snow covering the back window. It is a relatively safe thing to do and I have done it many times. Recently, as I executed my maneuvers one dark morning, I felt a thump. It was rather gentle, yet a surprising impact. I got out to see what I'd hit and was shocked to see the old stump lying flat on the snow. And that should be an end to it.

But I'm not the kind to let sleeping stumps lay, and as spring draws ever near, I begin planning how the poplar stump will rise again. It should be impossible to resurrect the old stump; it has outlived its usefulness and is probably all for the best that I bumped it when I did. But, given the generations of Flickers raised on this spot, it seems fitting that something must take the place of the venerable old post. Something a Flicker could point to with her long beak and say 'They don't make 'em like that any more.'