Tall Trees ...

Our current house has an en suite bathroom.  Truthfully its a stand-up shower, sink and toilet stuffed into a closet.  It is very unnerving to step out of the shower to Millie and Lilac staring at you through the window.  Granted they can only see you from the chest up but they follow your every move, and stare intently.  Goats are curious animal.  Usually they are preoccupied straining against the fence to try to reach the trunk of the Flowering Pear planted outside of their fence.  The tree has been there for 11 years as of this July.  It is always a comfort to see it there.

Adak, Alaska, was almost barren of trees when I was there in 1989.  Flying electronic warfare missions out of Adak for the Navy allowed me to put an image with the meteorological term CAVU-Clear Air Visibility Unlimited.  CAVU means there are no clouds and you can see forever, or you can see as far as you ... you know what I mean.  Our crew stopped off at Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island after a very long mission of the coast of Kamchatka.  I believe it is the first U.S. occupied island in the Aleutian Islands if you are traveling from Russia.  

We land, a fuel truck arrived along with a blue arctic fox that trotted across the taxiway.  Once we had fueled, we were back in the air to RTB (return to base) at Adak Naval Air Station.  It was CAVU.  Adak was visible from over 50 miles out.  Anyway, Adak does not have naturally occurring trees.  However, there is the planted Adak National Forest-a plot of trees that are less than 200 square feet and no taller than 8 feet. The island regularly experiences hurricane force winds (with a clear sky) in excess of 90 miles per hour.  High winds do not encourage the growth of tall trees.

Iceland was treeless also.  Driving from Keflavik Air Base to Reykjavik (the capital), we passed through endless miles of cold, lava rocks and trolls.  Myth says that trolls wander the lava rock fields at night and turn to piles of stone, neatly stacked and perfectly erect when caught by the sun's rays.  The Winter Solstice must be a troll party on the longest night of the year

1000-plus year-old tree.

Baobab fruit.

The savanna of Zambia had plenty of trees.  Most people think of the thorny Acacia when they picture the African savanna.  I picture Baobab trees.  Let me recommend two elementary level books at this point about Baobab trees.  They are The Baobab Tree by Brian K. Fulmer and The Baobab Tree by Louie Stowell.  Back to our story ... during our day long stay at the Munali Coffee Plantation I was able to get up close to a Baobab that was estimated to be at least 1000 years old.  (You can read the circumstances and details of our visit in my blog post Mubuyu Farms and the Breakdown.)  That millennial Baobab had a trunk over 20 feet in diameter.  Jesper, son of the owner William, said it had been there when his father and mother built the house.  William planted a Baobab at the birth of each of his children.  The tree for his then 40 year-old son was about six feet tall and 2-3 inches in diameter.  Baobab trees are iconic on the Zambian landscape and some tribes consider them sacred. The fruit of the Baobab is said to have medicinal properties.  For more information on Baobab trees visit this link.

Over the past 16 years I became enamored with a tree on Robertson Road in Lagrange, Georgia.   During the time I was teaching at Long Cane Middle School, I would use Robertson Road to cut over to U.S. 27 to take a back way to work.   Fall and Spring provided great opportunities for taking sunrise pictures across the pasture with an old shed and that iconic tree.   I noticed one Wednesday evening driving to church that the shed and tree were gone, and a patch of tall grass had replaced them.  I mentioned this at church and one of my friends said, "I loved that old tree.  I'm gonna miss it!"   Fortunately it has been immortalized by my camera.

That Flowering Pear outside my bathroom window has weathered a lot of storms.  It even survived Millie and Lilac eating all of the bark off of it. In July of 2006 I was in Carnes, Australia (pronounced cans) when the People to People program office called to inform me that my mother had died peacefully eating a bowl of ice cream.  I left Australia the next morning to return home for her funeral.  I wasn't flagged as a bereavement passenger, but I was flagged to be picked out by customs and TSA at every turn for extra scrutiny.   Our neighbor and friend, Dana, bought that Flowering Pear as a memorial to remind me of my mother.   Not a day goes by that I don't look out that window after a shower, smile, tell Mother good morning ... and freak out that Millie and Lilac are creeping on me through the fence.  Trees have a special place in my heart and my memories.  In that Flowering Pear, the memories of my Mother and my love for trees come together.  This is for you Mother:  "How 'bout them Braves!?!?!?"