Timmmmberrrrrrrr!
 I
recently had a birthday, one that was evenly
divisible by five, which meant it was another
opportunity for me to plant a tree in my
yard. A normal person would have landscaped
the entire lot at once, but I don't know
any normal people.
The
first tree in the series, planted 25 years
ago, was a crepe myrtle, chosen as a companion
for an existing crepe myrtle in the front
yard. The younger one has long since overtaken
the older in both breadth and width and
it
now guards the lawn like a massive, flowery-bedecked
giant, invoking undisguised awe from passers-by.
When I bought my home in 1986 the back
yard was a sad, barren wasteland. Nothing
but
cracked clay,
scrubby weeds, and sunburned ants. So
twenty years ago I blew out the candles
on my
cake and
plunged the root-ball of an 8-foot
oak sapling deep into the rock-hard gumbo.
It took ten
years of struggle but the oak finally got
sort of a second wind and has
since grown like a weed the past ten years.
It's now
at
least
forty
feet tall and its
shade
has transformed a once-apocalypse into
a paradise of soft, cool St. Augustine.
In addition, it protects my home from the
withering glare of the summer sun which
has, no doubt, lessened my energy bills.
I don't know what was transpiring in my life fifteen
years ago but I somehow forgot to plant a tree that
year, but I made up for it five years later when
I
decided it was time for the variety of tree no Texas
home should be without... a pecan. For the first
five years of its life were exasperating as it reliably
dropped all of its
leaves at the first hint of summer temperatures,
no matter how much water I lavished upon it. Eventually
it
came to some agreement with the heat and has managed
to retain its
leafy raiment these past few years but, so far, no
crop of nutty grandchildren. Alack, alas.
Five years ago I bought a rather expensive, for me, silver maple to add to the
front
yard
but
it
didn't
survive its
second
winter. In it place, planted but a week ago, is a much more modest, hopefully
hardier, live
oak.
I'll let you know in ten years how it works out.
So, in case you're counting I have added five (actually six) new trees to the
world
but
no
guns. Would that everyone could say the same thing.
--------------
Note: Sorry, no super-secret comic
today.
=Lefty=
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