Retired people like me have a lot of time on our hands. It’s true. Maybe a little too much, in my case. As I sit here writing to you, I’ve been focusing on the tree in my front yard. I must admit, I haven’t given her a once-over since I had all the ugly junipers ripped out last fall. She sits here begging to be noticed, as her roots really don’t allow her to get up and move to a house in which she might find better care. She doesn’t have a name. I’m not even sure what kind she is. She’s just a leafy tree in my brown front yard.
As I started to really examine her, I noticed she’s trying to bloom. Being in the path of severe winds, she isn’t having much luck. Her green leaves are rather sparse, which reminds me that I haven’t checked to make sure she is getting enough water. Plants have it rough sometimes.
So this tree, which I shall now name Cheryl, is old. Her bark is weathered and split, and her trunk makes me guess she was planted when the house was new. As trees go, she isn’t all that tall, maybe being 15′ at the most. She has an attractive shape, as tree shapes go. At her widest she is 10′ across. In function, she doesn’t do much for Winterpast, except to exclaim that she has grown here for sometime to those neighbors walking by. She doesn’t block sun, as it rises to the East and she is planted to the South of the house. She doesn’t give fruit, and therefore, isn’t one of my favorites.
As I look closer into her world, I realize there is an universe that I’ve ignored. A fascinating world of plants and animals that have taken up residence in her own little world. There are ants that run up and down her trunk, looking for tasty morsels, or sweet sap from the aphid families that drink her sap. Beattles hide under her bark, nesting, while creating more beetles. Butterflies stop at her little blooms and take a drink. All while she watches quietly.
Birds of all varieties stop off to take a rest in her branches. They exchange the daily gossip and news, fluffing their feathers when one has an opinion not popular to the others. There are budding love affairs among the branches, when the boy birds become silly while the girl birds become aloof. Her bend-y limbs provide a place to hold twigs and weeds, forming a nursery, where lovey-dovey birdy types become parents to demanding hatchlings.
All this activity goes on day after day, until the fall, when she quietly goes to sleep for another winter of ice and snow. Her dreams must be sweet and full, after witnessing all that occurs in her universe.
Retired people sometimes have too much time on their hands. Empty minutes and hours in which to capture and document all kinds of miniature miracles occuring in life every day. Trees. Wind. Mustangs. Jack Rabbits. Microcosms of life. All fascinating, and just enough to fill this retired writer’s quiet spring morning here in the Northern Nevada desert.