I've written about the little tree
across the driveway from my patio in the park. I love that little
tree but I do not have an affinity with that tree as I do with two
others in my life. These trees lived on the small farm I grew up on.
There are other trees on the farm of course fruit trees, the trees
behind the garage there were four of them standing side-by-side
fairly large, one large enough to support my treehouse. There is also
a stand up very large trees at the other end of our property down by
the foot of the big canal, the New York canal. These trees are huge
by the standard of the trees on our property. However, the two trees
I miss most is the cottonwood which grew in the corner of our
barnyard where the pasture intersected with the garden in the
barnyard. To my recollection the cottonwood was the only cottonwood
on our property. The cottonwood was difficult to climb. It's still in
the intersection as I indicated at the corner of our red outbuildings
in fact there was an outhouse just under the cottonwood which I used
to use to access the lower limbs of the tree. I like that corner of
the farm it was difficult to get to I often would use that area the
high things that I needed to. To my knowledge I was the only one who
ever climbed the cottonwood. Perhaps my younger brothers or sisters
but I have never heard them speak of climbing that tree. The other
trees that I climbed were not good for spying on the neighborhood is
the cottonwood was. The other trees had way too many branches covered
with leaves to see anything interesting. Of course the cottonwood
with its limbs, grown close to trunk was just perfect for handholds
and footings for climbing and no branches to obscure views of the
neighborhood. Of course, the major drawback of the cotton plant was
the “cotton”. Big huge clumps of white seed material blanketing
everything around the farm. The “cotton” only lasted for a week
or two in the rest of the year the Cottonwood just stayed stately
watching over the farm.
The other tree that I miss was rooted
at the base of the canal I spoke of earlier further west of the trees
I mentioned. I don't know what kind of trees these were they had a
rough bark and oval leaves the size of your thumb. The tree am
writing about how great limbs branching off the trunk almost
perpendicular close enough to the ground to get a good start on
climbing the tree. My brother claimed that tree high enough to fasten
a rope which made a perfect swing. We greatly enjoyed launching
ourselves from the lower limb swing out and back to the starting
point.
Before writing this piece I scoured all
the images I have on this hard drive of the old farm in hopes of
finding one image of the trees I miss. There were none. I know the
Cottonwood is gone for sure but I don't know about the great tree
downed by the canal base. I know homes have been built on that part
of the property that's a long ago where Hayfield's. I like to imagine
whether developed that housing The tree because they felt it might
enhance the property values. But I would not be surprised if it were
gone too.I suppose if there's a lesson that lesson would be to enjoy
the tree you are with…
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