Standing Around
We have a dedicated wildflower garden. It was beautiful for a number of years. But an over abundance of red ants and wind combined to turn it into grassland. What seeds the ants failed to take into their burrows, were blown on the wind to other yards and fields. I can’t do anything about the wind, but I’ve dealt with the ants, and yesterday I reseeded the garden. Today, I’ll do a light topdressing of soil, and then it’s the winter-wait for spring.
Meanwhile, I’m also thinking about trees. There’s an area in the back that could use a couple. But I realized that while the Lacy Oaks we planted when we moved here have come to a good size in the last ten years, my next ten years might be the last time I get to see newly planted trees grow to any remarkable size. That seems a little sad, but it won’t stop me from planting, it’s just an odd feeling to have.
When it gets right down to it, the trees have me well trained. I like them. I like their shade. So, I’ll plant them and help them grow, even if I only get their shade for a fraction of their lifetime. It’s your basic symbiotic relationship. I scratch their back, they scratch mine. And down the road, by the plot of my grave, stands an oak waiting for my mortal remains to make their way into the soil so that one day a tiny part of me will once again feel the sun and the rain and the wind.