If it has the will to live...

It may have started with the neighbor lady five houses down.  She had some of the loveliest gladiolas, camelias and irises I have ever seen,  but it is her roses I still remember fondly.  Often suffering from black spot, they were not as beautiful or perfect as the others, but their fragrance tempted small children from houses away.

Often a group of us would spontaneously congregate on her lawn, but only if she were there to give us permission, as we were a well-behaved lot.  Did I forget to mention that this lady had two operating thumbs on her left-hand?  She would delight us all by wiggling them in the air as she grinned mischieviously.  At the time her hair was gray and her face quite wrinkled, which makes me wonder how many generations she entertained in such an uninhibited and joyous way before they learned how to judge.

I lived in Old Greenwich, a part of the greater Greenwich, Connecticut area that was accessible to the middle class in those days.   Like many New England towns there were large leafy maples and ancient oaks that stood as sentries at almost ever home except my own.

My father was a lawn-man.  He vigorously enjoyed mowing, edging, fertilizing and weeding his perfect and crabgrass-free block of greenery.  Everything he managed was linear possessing hard angles and corners.  We knew better than to mar that turf, as he saw this blandness as the only civilized way to live.  However, he had not enjoyed the pruning, raking, bulging roots or shade generated by our giant maple.

One day I walked home from kindergarten and my house was lost.   A five-year-old does not understand the concept of change, so when I thought I had gotten home and there was only a tree stump, I cried like the baby I was.  The Wizard of Oz was a popular movie for children in those days, so who could blame me if I still believed in magic and witches and tree thieves.

Funny, I don't remember who rescued me.  It might have been tipsy Madeleine who lived across the street and bred miniature poodles.  Or my mother's friend, plain old Dot Bolster, who looked like the classic spinster but possessed a maternal impulse that oozed from every pore.

Perhaps my older sister discovered me and found my childish misery disturbing.  I could have realized on my own that someone had stolen our tree, who knows?  All I remember is that I went into mourning and was inconsolable for at least the rest of that week.

My family tells me my personality is like my Opera singer mother, but this belies my true innards.  They are much more like my sailor father who longed for adventure even as he allowed my mother to permanently shred his sails.  He hated to be cramped anywhere, which is probably why as a very tall man with an amazing presence because of it, he enjoyed the sea.  My family didn't own a step-ladder as, frankly, we didn't need one.  As long as I can remember, my father had at least one boat in the water and another dry-docked needing to be scraped, sealed and repainted.

I wonder if his need to experience a territorial landscape with that unending horizon motivated him to chop down so many trees.  Or maybe he just wanted some free firewood.  He wasn't a big talker and didn't take well to others questioning his actions or motives, so I will never know for sure.  I prefer to think he cut trees without malice, as he proudly planted a few Scotch pines which are resident giants now and still adorn the family land.

After my father bought his family home in Massachusetts and decided to add 1500 feet to it, a two-hundred-year-old oak met its fate.  He claimed a concern that it could fall on the house. The trunk stump that remained was so wide my sisters and I could dance on it as if it were a stage.  I grudgingly forgave him when he pointed out that it was my bedroom the oak would hit first if it fell.

Resembling my father in some ways, I have spent my adult life nurturing the environment I could control,  planting trees and caring for them wherever I have lived.   I would estimate that my father cut down 100 trees during his lifetime while I have planted 160 during mine.  When I think about this, it seems to balance things somewhat, but maybe my children need to plant their trees to make up for all those other ancestors.  We had a whole side of the family that were boat-builders in Nova Scotia, so you know they used a lot of trees too.

It takes years to decide what kind of person one is going to be, doesn't it?  I have developed an understanding of nature and what parameters I should use when I decide what lives or dies in my yard.  There are some volunteer woods in the back, which I leave alone and humbly allow nature to manage.  The other 2.5 acres around our home we manipulate and nurture.

We have been pretty successful so far, creating a hobby orchard, a miniature bat, bee, bird and butterfly sanctuary, all while attracting deer and other wildlife year round. We may not always want to do all this work, but for now it is a lovely, serene lifestyle in many ways, if a bit remote.

My house is another habitat area and although I do not tolerate living creatures inside unless they are domesticated, this little gem sprouted in my pantry.

(Spiders, ants, earwigs and flies you have been duly warned.)   It is a baby sweet potato I had overlooked during the holidays.  I decided it was too cute to toss in the compost heap, so I am growing a vine.  By spring it should be at least a couple of feet long.

Our little five-year-old descendant has eagerly watched the tiny leaves sprout and it is her job to let me know if the water needs to be replenished.  This vine - like the tiny cherry trees, teeny oaks and birdseed sunflowers that appear uninvited each year - has a will to live.  So be it.

I sincerely hope you have something you can nurture too, at least until gardening season returns.  In the meantime I will nurture this little harbinger of life, peruse my seed catalogues and gardening magazines and dream about spring.