Forest for the Trees

His bare feet kept to the path with little effort on this almost winter of a day. An ideal time for searching, the druid thought. The new moon of the winter solstice was approaching, a prime time to harvest mistletoe, and today was a bright sunny day with no wind after several days of storms.

Most of the leaves had fallen allowing a clear view of the forest. Clumps of the parasitic mistletoe would be much easier to spot than during the summer harvest time. Oaks were the ideal host, though most important was access to the clumps on the branches. Too high or too far out on a branch made for a dangerous harvest, especially in the darkness of night! A mushroom was a far safer pick, if you knew their actual identity.

A single falling leaf drew his attention to the side, and in the background, a familar shape. A grove of oaks, some with fruit shapes on their branches, scattered themselves over a slope. Turning from the animal path the druid's feet crossed a carpet of wet leaves but with hardly a sound.

Upon crossing a small creek the druid shook off his hood to look up into the branches of the nearby oaks. He made his way uphill, drifting toward one tree then another judging the clumps of mistletoe. At last, near the top of the slope he found what he was looking for, mistletoe clumps, too many for this tree to bear, that he could reach on the slope with ease.