Requiem for Trees

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog might remember a post I wrote about the trees in front of our house showing new life last summer.  Unfortunately, that post was premature, and the two trees eventually died of thirst before the drought of 2011 was over.  Now that it is February of 2012, Hubby and I had decided that we were going to have to sacrifice one of our vacation plans and replace them.  After all, in the South we need shade and really, trees are just lovely and add so much to the landscape.  It would be terribly barren without them.  Earlier this week a man stopped by the house and dropped off a business card, and come to find out, our neighbor knew the guy so we decided to go for it.  By "go for it", I mean spend lots of cash to take trees out and put trees in.  We took two trees out of our front yard and planted three trees.  The new trees are nice, big trees, and we have to confess are much nicer than the original trees.

Sad Goodbye

Look at the size of those roots!

Honestly, those trees were pretty easily replaced.  What we really had to suffer through was taking out the big tree in the back yard.  It was a lovely shade tree.  Unfortunately, we were just plain stupid about planting it where we did.  If we had known that our "yard" was going to expand over the years we probably would have planted it further from the house.  Well....I guess since I'm being honest here.....probably not.  We liked it where it was.  The trouble was that we couldn't move into the tree.  As cool as the Swiss Family Robinson house was, this tree was never going to be big enough.  We were at the point of it was either going to be the tree or the house.  I'm rather fond of having a roof over my head, so it was the tree.  It has been replaced with a nice red oak tree, but it's going to take a few years before it will provide as much shade as the old ash tree.  ***BIG sigh***

TREE

by Joyce Kilmer 

I Think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree. 
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed 
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; 
A tree that looks at God all day, 
And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 
A tree that may in summer wear 
A nest of robins in her hair; 
Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 
Who intimately lives with rain. 
Poems are made by fools like me, 
But only God can make a tree. 

On another note - A friend of mine suggested a daily Lenten guide entitled, Simplifying The Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit.  by Paula Huston.  (My friend has the blog Green for God that you see the link to on the right.)  I am reading it now, and it appears to be a good resource.  She is a Catholic writer, and I have not gotten too far into the book since Ash Wednesday was just yesterday, but if you are yearning to use lent as a season of renewal it might be worthwhile checking into. It's not too late!!

Gratitude for:

- Warm breezes and a bit of spring.

- New life even though it means sad goodbyes.

- Good neighbors

- Haircuts!!