Growing Trees

A windless day, rare for our hill, and warm enough for a t-shirt. Most of the snow has transmogriphied into wet leaves, mud and sticks.

To be honest, I miss the snow’s whitewash of the work the yard will need. A false spring or a hint of it? I’ve seen the weather forecast for the week so my brain knows the answer my heart and skin refuse to believe.

My wife, Patty, got me a bird feeder so I can see some of the birds I hear. It’s been up for days and I’ve only seen one little bird on it. I looked it up and the bird is a chickadee, a black-capped chickadee to be precise. They live here throughout the winter. I read that they prefer caterpillars to seed, but in winter there isn’t much of a caterpillar buffet.

I was cheap and filled the feeder with old seed. Who knew seed could get old? Patty, for one. She had an idea that the package was somewhere around ten years old. I kept staring at the feeder expecting flocks of colorful, singing birds to arrive and then to sit on my shoulders and at my feet like a statue of Saint Francis. As days passed and the flocks didn’t materialize I figured they just couldn’t find it in the cold and snow and begin to feel sad for the plight of these birds, cold and starving with salvation so close. I had become Charlie Brown’s friend, Linus Van Pelt, vainly waiting for the Great Pumpkin. To her credit, Patty didn’t make fun of me. She merely suggested that new seed would attract birds. I’ll be buying fresh seed for him and his friends and cousins. Maybe I’ll get some bird pictures for next time. Unless, of course, I am blanketed with grateful avians.

For the past few years, I’ve been watching a miniature evergreen forest spring up alongside my driveway. The big trees have made babies. It has been


fun watching them grow. I should transplant them but I have had little success with planting things and fear killing them. Enough things have grown here and left already. The boys, Mark and Scott, were two when we moved here. Livy was born here much like this little one that appeared when the

snow melted. I haven’t killed any of my kids. I made mistakes. They never mention them, but I know. Would these little trees be as resilient?

Patty is much better than me at growing things. It isn’t just nurturing. She pays attention to details I don’t know exist. To see her fawn over a tomato plant and know its needs is as remarkable to me as her getting off the phone with one of the children and saying, “There is something wrong. I can tell.” She’s correct much more than she isn’t. So one day soon I’ll ask her what to do with the little trees. She’ll know how much root ball to dig, if they need shade or sun and how much space they need to thrive. I’ll ask her right after I put new seeds in the bird feeder.