If a tree falls in a dense forest, it becomes the foundation of a rich new ecosystem.

I was born in New England and live in Connecticut now, but for six years of my childhood I lived in the Puyallup Valley region of western Washington. Compared to New England, the area tends to have pretty mild (if wet) weather year-round, and we did a lot of family day hikes in the woods, sometimes fairly close to home and sometimes a bit further away in places like the Paradise area of Tahoma (Mt. Rainier). Once we even took a road trip south to San José, California, stopping along the way to take in the unearthly ambiance of dense redwood forests. Sometime during all this hiking I learned about the concept of a "nurse log," a fallen tree that nourishes saplings and other life on the forest floor.