I think that I shall never see....

I love trees

     We have a new house.  We have one tree in the front yard.  One.  I don't even know what kind it is, except it is a tree.  A maple, of some sort.
      At our old house, we had a lot of trees.
       There was a pine tree named Martha.  Emily got Martha in third grade and we planted it in the yard on Mill Pond.  When we moved in 1992, Emily insisted we take Martha with.  So we did.
       I planted a bur oak in our old back yard.  A bur oak is one of the slowest growing trees around.  It has a tendency to have branches that hit the ground.  It can produce acorns, and it can get very big.  It will probably be 100 years before it is a fully formed tree.  It will then live for centuries.  I named it Dennis.
      I had a pin oak on the side of the house.  That was Carl.  It was also a nut producer and grows at a much faster rate.  I love the oaks.
      Julia and Emily were the sugar maples in the front yard.  Each fall they would turn a brilliant red.  I actually went out one year and painted my feet on the road.  Then every day during October I would go out as close to 8 a.m. as I could and take a picture of the front of the house with the two trees.  I always thought I would make a flip book.....flip the pages and watch the trees change color and lose their leaves.   I never did, but I still have the pictures.
      Jackie was the first of the apple trees, but Mom and Dad were added.  They went the first four or five years hardly producing anything because the deer seemed to like the little apples a lot.  This year they are loaded with blossoms, now it is up to the bees to make them produce.
     We have always had a blue spruce.  I have talked to two landscaper types who both cautioned about planting them now because of a blight or something that is affecting their growth.  I loved putting lights on them, and now have about 20 strands I may need to get rid of because I have no use for them.  I don't think I will be around long enough to have a blue spruce grow to the height where 20 strands are needed.
      I don't remember naming the spruce, or all the other trees that were in the yard.  I know I always thought of them as my friends.
      Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will have some sugar maples in the front....and I will call them Julia and Emily, as I did before.
      Eventually I will plant a bur oak, if I can find one, and a red oak or two.  I will give them names of people who are, or were, important in my life.
     And I have to plant a hickory, since we live in Hickory Ridge.  Seems appropriate.
      Jackie once asked me why I would plant a bur oak, knowing they are slow growing and I will never see it become a full grown tree.
      I semi-remember an expression:  We don't plant a tree for ourselves, we plant it for our children.  Or something like that.  It could have even been:  We don't plant a tree for today, we plant it for the future.
Whatever.
     Trees are my friends, they are friends of all of us, and we can never have too many friends!