"Trees are beautiful. They fill up the sky. If you have a tree, you can climb up its trunk, roll in its leaves, or hang a swing from one of its limbs. Cows and babies can nap in the shade of a tree. Birds can make nests in the branches. A tree is good to have around. A tree is nice." From the children's book, A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry
My mom had this book in her collect after retiring from teaching. She passed it on to me for my children and we loved it. Growing up, mom had a way of working trees into the conversation as I played among so many in my childhood. We had a family cabin surrounded with pines, and mom knew all their names. She'd sketch them and get to know more about them as she noted the sometimes subtle differences as she'd draw.
"Now see how the pine cones of the Sugar Pine look so different compared to the Ponderosa Pine?" We'd be walking along and she'd get the conversation moving like it was going to be about trees, then it would change into being about me as she worked the growing up and changes into the tree like comparison of life and living. Gave me a love for trees.
I have a pine tree that has just been removed from my backyard so now all these memories of trees, and my upbringing get to float around at the front of my memory. It's sad, and happy at the same time.
The tree had been diseased by the boring beetle and we sadly watched it die. Last week a few tree like branches came down and landed on electrical wires. Time for the tree to be removed! I knew it was going to leave a empty space where we use to throw out a blanket for the babies to play under it, or nap in a crib, or crawl and explore, or swing from the tire, play dress up under, and so much more. My children didn't know that until it was gone. I listened at the backdoor as they spoke in quiet hushed voices about the loss and how empty the yard was now. The tree had filled it with shade and with that shade, it created a space for our family to SHARE space.
The tree was about 50 years old. It was 45 to 50 feet high and it proudly held a 20 plus year old hawks nest at the top. I heard the hawks lamenting it yesterday. Heart breaking! The neighbor from two houses down come over to tell us how he will miss the shade (we had no idea it reached his yard, hadn't thought about it.) and inquired about the hawks nest. We assured him that we'd asked the tree guys to remove it as safely possible and they cut it out and brought it down with total respect. We've called around and our local natural history museums all want it.
So where do we go from this loss? I encouraged some seedling trees about ten years ago so we'll plant one or two and create a space for more sharing. We'll share our stories about what happened under the tree as we sit by the stump. Maybe make a bird bath in the old tree stump. It's story is not through yet.
A tree IS nice!
(pats heart, and points to the empty space)
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