Starting Over

In the fall of 2011 we arranged for the city to plant a memorial tree—a tulip poplar— in the park, and the tree was planted in April 2012.  A few days later, another memorial tulip poplar was planted next to ours.

The man in whose memory that tree was planted was a prominent businessman in the town for many years. He was an elder at the church we attended for a while, but his attendance  record at services was dismal. When it came time to choose new elders or retain those already on the board, he was nominated again. At the business meeting, one of the congregation pointed out that he only attended services a couple of times a year (he was not at the business meeting) and needed to be replaced. He was reelected as an elder.

The fact that these two trees grew side by side was just an example of a powerful person in the community coming to the same end as a person with no power or influence whatsoever, which is where our son stood in the social strata of the town

That really isn’t important now I suppose, but what happened this year is that the tree next door to ours bloomed.

Which means our tree would have bloomed too, except our tree died.

Two years ago the tree almost blew over after a hard rain and strong winds. The city tied it to stake, and it seemed to be okay, but within a year it was obvious the tree was going die. When it finally fell over for good, there were no roots attached to the stump. 

The city replanted the tree this summer, and it has done quite well. 

 

We watered it through the heat of the summer. It has shot up and is already taller than my husband.

We got a taste of winter this week for a few days. There was a light dusting of snow one night – it reminded me of what it would look had powdered sugar been put in a strainer and then sifted over the ground -- and then perhaps an inch fell Wednesday night.

The new tree looks to be in good shape for the winter. Fingers crossed.