Tuesday, August 16, 2011

to future games of hide 'n' seek

    The day after our wedding, while we were opening up all of the thoughtful gifts our guests gave to us, my dad told me and Chris that he wanted to buy us a tree for our wedding present. Chris & I have been on quite the tree kick lately, so ,naturally, we were thrilled to hear this.
Last fall we bought a red sunset maple tree and a red oak for our front lawn. Its not that we don't have any trees in our yard already (that's one of the great perks of living on a farm that's been around for 150+ years, we have LOTS of big trees), its just that most of the ones that we do have aren't going to last for very much longer.
     When Chris's ancestors planted the trees, they planted a few maples, which will last for a while longer, and a whole slew of Chinese elm trees. They planted these elms because their nature is to grow big, and get there fast. Since Chris and I started dating in 2005, I have seen 2 of these monster trees get cut down because of their fast deterioration toward falling onto the house. These trees can look healthy at the end of a summer and come the following spring, half of the tree will not come back to life. We both love having huge shade trees in our yard so we knew that we must start planting for the future.


     So anyways, while opening up two large cardboard boxes of wedding gifts from my dad, he told us that they were to go along with another part of his present for us. We unwrapped two beautiful white tullip-style metal lawn chairs. Yay for me :)  I have been obsessed with that style of chair for a while and every time I walk through an antique store or down the isles of a flea market, I make sure to drop some hints to dad that "I'd sure like to have a set of those someday." He told us then that he was going to buy us a willow tree (double YAY) for the other part of the present. He said the chairs were meant to sit under the canopy of our willow tree once it was large enough to have one. My family has had a love affair with willow trees for as long as I can remember. My dad had always commented about how someday he would have one in his yard. And as of 6 years ago, he planted one in our yard in West Brooklyn. My love for them started playing under a great, big beauty of one in my great-grandparents, Louise & Willie's yard outside of Compton. There was just something so magical about it. The way the wind made it seem to breathe and how it looked when a wind gust came through just before a storm pulled at my heart strings.

The men hard at work. 
    Right away when dad said this, I looked at Chris's face, and surprisingly he wasn't grimacing. You see, Chris and his dad have had feelings just as strong as mine toward willow trees, but definitely NOT of the same nature. Sometimes they can only see the practicality of things, and often overlook such things as "beauty". All I'd ever hear them talk about was the mess that willow trees make. So I asked Chris, right there in front of everybody, if that was okay with him. He said he wouldn't mind one as long as it was far enough away from any of our buildings and where we park the cars.
He thought it might even be a nice addition to the place. Hooray :)


Thank you, Dad!
(Yes, that is my garden in the background.. check out 'tomato jungle' on the right)


So today over lunch, dad went with us to 11th Street Nursery and we picked the old girl up and planted her in the back yard on the north side of the garage. We look forward to someday putting a wood-seated rope swing on it where our kids can swing.. and the many games of hide 'n' seek that it will, no doubt, be a part of.



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