My Treehuggers

Here they are, my two "cheesey" treehuggers. This tree is in our backyard and it is either 4 or 44 years old, depending on how you want to look at it. It currently has these 2 branches coming out of the ground (one at a funky angle), no leaves, and 3 clumps of berries holding on for dear life. It is barely as tall as the electrical lines it is trying to avoid.

Ever since I was a kid there was this giant mulberry tree in our yard that dropped these stupid berries on the ground making it impossible to walk barefooted in the grass for fear that you would get stuck by a hardened berry or smash an over-rippened one. Either way it wasn't a pleasant experience. When me moved back into this house I groaned at the thought of the berries! The tree was enormous, you couldn't climb it, and you couldn't grow grass under the north side of the thing.

Then came the storms of 2002 or 2003, I don't remember when exactly. It was during one of the monsoon seasons where there was no rain to speak of but plenty of wind, sand, dust, lightning, thunder and all kinds of ruckus. There were a couple of nights of especially harsh storms that were accompanied by micro bursts. I don't even really know what a micro burst is, but it sounds pretty bad. I imagine this little (micro) gust of wind wandering around through the sky and them BOOM! it explodes (bursts), sending everything in it's way to scatter. What a mess. All I really know for sure is that a micro burst took out our 40+ year old tree. It toppled onto our house, pulling the roots from the ground, but leaving the roof in tack. The tree extractors just shook their heads as they hauled it off. They said that was the healthiest tree they had ever seen uprooted. Yikes!

Healthy roots were an understatement. The roots kept sprouting out of the ground all over the place. Bill was a fanatic about mowing them down for over a year. Then a summer came and went and it was REALLY hot! Do you have any idea how much shade we DIDN'T have because that giant tree was gone? NO shade in the yard and our bedroom received heat all day long instead of not at all. Finally, I convinced Bill to let a couple of the root sticks grow. That was shortly after Tasha was born so the new growth is roughly the same age as she is. Ah, how sweet. Yes, it is a pathetic excuse for a tree but it's ours. There is no breeze to speak of, but it provides a patch of shade in the summer that is big enough to place a 10 foot pool under, so that's something.

This isn't the blog that I started out to write, but I like it none the less. I suppose it is my one tribute to my family "tree" for the month. Boy, that was a really bad pun. I apologize to my posterity but will blame Bill for his fabulous influence in the lame pun arena.