over 13 years ago my husband and I purchased our first home, an old house, requiring much TLC. We were drawn to the charm old houses have, not to mention the history. We were also young and stupid, thinking that we could do all the work ourselves, but that's another story for another day.
One of the key charms that drew us in was the large maple standing in the front yard, a big "ole" Maple tree, that over the years has developed the unimaginative name "The Tree". We love this tree, my husband in particular who will spend one weekend in the spring and another in the fall, fertilizing this aging but beautiful tree.
We had a "tree doctor" once pay a visit to the tree, and he guessed it to be OVER 200 YEARS OLD! That's a lot of history. That's a lot of little boys (and girls) hanging from low limbs like monkeys, a lot of birds nest nestled safely amongst the branches, a lot of leaves to rake, but a lot of leave piles to jump in, a good amount of shade over the decades, and a lot of back drops for photo ops. 200 years of past and hopefully many years of future. Unfortunately the great stimulus package passed by the government has put "The Tree" in harms way. For whatever stupid (although I'm told there is a purpose) reason some of the local money is going to widen our road. As a result we have had to give up some of our land to "immanent domain" We are loosing many maple along the roadside (most likely offspring from "the Tree) and we are told if the roots interfere with the project other trees will come down as well. We are 80% sure the tree is far enough back that it will avoid any execution, however, in the next few weeks if you hear about a crazy family of three chained to a tree, well you can no doubt guess it will be us trying to save "The Tree".
1 comment:
I read somewhere that it was tradition to give a newly married couple a pair of Maple trees to plant in the front of their farmhouse. This tree probably used to have a twin. It is sad to see so many old Maples coming down.
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