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"A $50 hole for a $5 tree"
Apr. 5th, 2013 09:12 pmOne of my recent random reconnections was listening to a Whadya Know rerun out of Rochester from a couple of weekends ago, broadcast from Carbondale, Illinois, and hearing Michael introduce the talented duo of Robert Bowlin and Will Maring.
Or was it? No, "Will" very quickly turned out to be "Wil" (I'm still not sure what that's short for), and the name rang a bell.Turns out, she'd friended me on LJ back in 2007, apparently on the strength of my listing Nanci Griffith and Joni Mitchell as interests. Wil's LJ time was limited, and I never saw another entry from her, but the name stuck, and so did the music from that past Whadya Know show. We became Facebook friends, as one does these days, and I ordered her most recent solo album-
- which is pretty damn beautiful (including a cover of Steve Winwood's "Back in the High Life Again" that might just out-Steve the original in its own way). I've been reading about her shows to the south and west of here, but today she was close to home- and wound up close, in her own way, to ours.
Here, simply, is what she said:
Time to enjoy the afternoon sun, planting my MacIntosh apple tree..... where, oh where? my mom always says "dig a $50 hole for a $5 tree". Ok Mom.
That resonated a whole bunch, so I felt the need to share why with her- below, slightly edited, is what was shared.
----
I replied to Wil:
About 15 years ago, we took down the remnants of a 1960s backyard clothesline. Doing so left a $50 hole where its concrete cast had been. So I put a $5 tree in it- a pin oak sapling from a now-defunct hardware and garden store, stuck it in the trunk of my '89 Chevy Corsica, and tossed it in the hole. It's now the biggest tree in the whole yard and a gorgeous source of shade in the summer. I'll see if my wife has an in-season pic of it.
Of course Eleanor had a picture of it. Him, rather- we named him Dave, after David Letterman, who we were still watching semiregularly back then. This picture doesn't capture his vertical majesty, but it gives you a good idea of how big he's grown, in terms of trunk and breadth and shade:
Dave was young and supple enough to survive our 2006 "October Surprise" snowstorm that decimated so much of our region. Just last week, another semi-casualty of that storm came crashing down, when the town came by and completely defoliatied a street tree (probably a few years older than Dave) about ten feet up its trunk. It still has a nice crown, but the wounds of its lower branches are still painful to look at.
That random hole with that random purchase now shelters and shades us for six months out of the year. Friendships can plant, and grow, just as beautifully from just as random beginnings. I'm blessed to have ended my week with this tall tale:)
Or was it? No, "Will" very quickly turned out to be "Wil" (I'm still not sure what that's short for), and the name rang a bell.Turns out, she'd friended me on LJ back in 2007, apparently on the strength of my listing Nanci Griffith and Joni Mitchell as interests. Wil's LJ time was limited, and I never saw another entry from her, but the name stuck, and so did the music from that past Whadya Know show. We became Facebook friends, as one does these days, and I ordered her most recent solo album-
- which is pretty damn beautiful (including a cover of Steve Winwood's "Back in the High Life Again" that might just out-Steve the original in its own way). I've been reading about her shows to the south and west of here, but today she was close to home- and wound up close, in her own way, to ours.
Here, simply, is what she said:
Time to enjoy the afternoon sun, planting my MacIntosh apple tree..... where, oh where? my mom always says "dig a $50 hole for a $5 tree". Ok Mom.
That resonated a whole bunch, so I felt the need to share why with her- below, slightly edited, is what was shared.
----
I replied to Wil:
About 15 years ago, we took down the remnants of a 1960s backyard clothesline. Doing so left a $50 hole where its concrete cast had been. So I put a $5 tree in it- a pin oak sapling from a now-defunct hardware and garden store, stuck it in the trunk of my '89 Chevy Corsica, and tossed it in the hole. It's now the biggest tree in the whole yard and a gorgeous source of shade in the summer. I'll see if my wife has an in-season pic of it.
Of course Eleanor had a picture of it. Him, rather- we named him Dave, after David Letterman, who we were still watching semiregularly back then. This picture doesn't capture his vertical majesty, but it gives you a good idea of how big he's grown, in terms of trunk and breadth and shade:
Dave was young and supple enough to survive our 2006 "October Surprise" snowstorm that decimated so much of our region. Just last week, another semi-casualty of that storm came crashing down, when the town came by and completely defoliatied a street tree (probably a few years older than Dave) about ten feet up its trunk. It still has a nice crown, but the wounds of its lower branches are still painful to look at.
That random hole with that random purchase now shelters and shades us for six months out of the year. Friendships can plant, and grow, just as beautifully from just as random beginnings. I'm blessed to have ended my week with this tall tale:)