Planting Hope

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

The next best time is now.

               --Chinese Proverb

He who plants a tree

  plants a hope.

                                  --Lucy Larcom, "Plant a Tree"

Randy planted a little hope a couple of weeks ago. And as he did, he continued a legacy that began long before we moved to this house, 8 months pregnant with our first baby and looking toward the future with excitement and a little trepidation.

Our house is nestled among big old trees that give us shade in the summer and shelter us from winter winds.

Years ago, there were people like Randy who planted those trees. Did they imagine that a little boy and a little girl would soar into the air on a swing hung from a backyard hackberry tree? 

Did they imagine that grade school age children would drag a boom box outside and have jumping contests as they bailed out of a high-flying swing? And did they even contemplate that yet another generation of children would giggle at Grandpa's "under-doggies" as they soared high enough to touch the sky ... or at least the shrubbery nearby? 

Brooke

Kinley - a long time ago!

Or that the tree would be serenaded with a Grandma singing, "How would you like to go up in a swing? Up in the air so blue?" Did they think that children would gather under the branches and make mudpies, tend to their baby dolls or make roads with Tonka trucks? 

Did they think about that canopy of green that would nestle a family as it grew?

Those long-ago tree planters and my husband must share an optimism for the future and generations to come. When our old cottonwood tree by the mailbox toppled in one of three windstorms this summer, Randy was talking about another tree, practically before he pushed the debris from the old one into the tree row across the road.

Our son-in-law's dad (and our friend) Alan has the same mindset as Randy. Alan works for Iowa State University Extension now after years of service in Kansas. Not much time had passed before Alan sent an email with tree recommendations for our area. He'd contacted Pam Paulsen at Reno County Extension, a former Kansas colleague. 

After Googling all the choices, we decided we'd go with an oak. So we went to Bornholdt Plantland in Hutchinson to look at the two recommended varieties. We chose a sawtooth oak. 

It looked a whole lot bigger on the back of the pickup than it did out in the nursery. 

"Maybe we should have brought the cattle trailer," I said under my breath to Randy.

It took three guys to wrestle the tree into the back of the pickup.

And off we went for home, me nervously watching the burlap flap in the wind and hoping that the whiplash didn't do irreparable damage to our not-inexpensive new addition. 

Thankfully, Randy and a helper, Jim, had started digging the hole the day before. However, the jumbo size required a little more digging. 

The next challenge was getting it out of the pickup. I'm not sure how much help I was, but I tried.

I also helped pull it up into position and shoveled in dirt, though Randy did a lot more than I did.

As is always the case with growing things, Randy will be the reason this sawtooth oak survives. As you can see, the new tree is near our mailbox. After some additional work from Randy, more irises and tulips will decorate the spot next spring where our cottonwood once stood. 

I sent a text to Alan after the job was done, who replied, "It's half grown!"

 

As I pointed out, we aren't exactly young whippersnappers anymore, so we needed a head start to enjoy the tree.

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what "the story of the trees" would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.

~Author Unknown,
quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions
by Maud van Buren, 1938

Randy began replacing aging trees around our farmstead 30-plus years ago - as evidenced by the photo of he and Jill planting a blue spruce. That little blue spruce now towers near our north driveway.

In 2012, I wrote a blog about another of Randy's tree planting sessions.

2012 - Randy & our new Autumn Blaze Red Maple Tree

2012 - Fat Albert Blue Spruce. The spruce Jill & Randy planted is in the background.

These trees are "telling a story," as the quote said. And we hope future generations will find that message of hope found in growing things.