trees

I have two maple trees, a large one in the backyard, and a good-sized one in the front yard. I would call the latter large except that it is dwarfed by a huge sweetgum tree.

Each spring, the maples release a seed that whirls down into the ground. The rains this past week has started their germination, and I have spent much of my casual weeding pulling out the tiny maple saplings already laying claim to their part of the earth.

If I were to walk away from my garden today, and it were to lay untouched for the next 20 years, the beds would soon be covered by a large stand of skinny, crowded maples. And poplars. And a few other trash tree/volunteers.

There is a white pine tree in the back, a few feet into the Colonel's backyard. We've been told that several years ago a professor from Purdue came through and called it the second tallest white pine tree in Indiana. The lower branches are long gone, but it is quite tall and wide, and if it were to fall it could easily take out apart of our house or the Colonel's.

You have to admire that within this world a fellow thought enough to measure and look at trees, surely hundreds of them, enough to make such a proclamation. How can you argue with such a man?

I pull the tiny maple saplings and marvel at how many more are coming up in this corner or that. I will miss a few and a few weeks from now I'll reach down to pull them up, and it will be hard. But doable. Wait a year and I will have to shovel it out, or hack it out.