A Tree In Every Yard

Ah.  Fall has come to Nebraska.  I must always remind people that there are many more trees in this part of the state than most people think.  As I look out my window I see nature’s majesty in the leaves on the trees and the ground below. The foliage is pained in hues of sun fire yellow, Macintosh Red and a blush of orange.  To just take in the beauty as it sways in the autumn wind is a sight to behold.  It reminds me of living back in Michigan where there were many more trees.  There we would load the kids in the car and go driving in the woods.  When we stopped, the children would collect the prettiest leaves to keep.  We would place them in books to keep them straight and preserve them, just as my mother had taught me.  As a child growing up in Port Huron, MI we had a wood in our back yard.   My mother would take me for walks in the fall and I would collect leaves.  I would pretend I was Winnie-the-Pooh on an adventure with Christopher Robbin in the Hundred Acre Wood.  The prettiest leaves I gave to her as gifts.  After a good walk we would return with our haul and place them between the pages of books.  Sometimes we would look at old ones from years before and marvel at how wonderful they looked.  My mother continued the practice with my own children years later.  It’s sad now that I think about it.  After both my parents passed away all those books were thrown in a dumpster.  Perhaps it wasn’t the leaves that were so important but the memories of collecting them.  Those were special times and I cherish them in my heart.  It is because of my mother that I went leaf collecting with my children.  Now I sit in my subdivision where everyone has at least one tree…except for me.  That’s right.  I still have not procured a tree.  As I have stated before in my blog, trees I buy always seem to die.  I get advice from the tree guy.  I read up on the different trees.  Yet once I have one planted, it always seems to die.  I see sale after sale go by during the year and think about it but can’t bring myself to pull the trigger.  So the only leaves I get are the ones that blow into my yard.  I look at them, all dried and colorless and feel saddened.  And so I sit and look out my window at the beautiful leaves in my neighbor’s yards and remember going on those adventures with my mom and my kids.