I am the only one to call it the Grove: everyone else calls it the Fort. It was a circle of 7 or so birches making an uneven circle about 6 feet across. There is a flattish, moss-covered rock in the center.

My dad, my uncle, and their cousins had their secret meetings there. One summer, they tried to make a rule that it was for blue-eyed people only, just to leave out girls.

When I was quite little, there were nails in some of the trees: I never knew what they hung on the nails. One of the biggest trees had initials carved in it.

In 2000, when I was recovering from Troubles, I made up a little packet – a silver charm, a fortune from a cookie, and a letter to the trees – that I wrapped up in leather and buried next to the rock.

In 2001, the packet was still buried.

In 2003, it had risen up from underground. I dug a new hole and re-buried it.

In 2005, it had surfaced again, and I brought it home with me. The packet is mossy and dried shut. I don’t think I’ll ever cut it open.

Birch trees aren’t particularly long-lived, for trees. They get warty-looking, and the bark becomes fragile (less suitable for paper). The tree with the initals fell first. The circle got gaps.

Last summer, there were only 3 birches left, all of them looking a little fragile.

I took Dingo to see the grove. It’s a mossy rock surrounded by stumps. And for a minute I was sad, until he pointed out all the baby trees, growing in a rough ring around the rock.

In 20 years, I hope there will be a grove again. In the meantime, it’s in my head, the place where I go when I need rest and calm.

Closer in was the House Rock: a large, flattish rock on an angle with a tree stump rising at one end. My sister and the younger cousins played house there for whole days. The stump was the chimney. Years went by and the “chimney” got shorter and shorter. Now it’s just a little pile of rotten wood under one end of the rock.

It’s a gift to know a patch of forest so well.