Good Timber Does Not Grow with Ease

Several years ago we got a landscape designer to come make sense of the jungle in our back yard. He drew up a detailed plan, and we set about spending thousands of dollars putting it into place. (Still spending, sadly.)

We built a large deck on the south-facing back of the house. The landscape plan called for four maple trees that would give some nice shade for the deck...some years down the road, since maples are very slow growers.

To get a jump start, we got the biggest trees we could afford on a fall clearance and even then paid about $200 apiece for trees that were a few measly inches in caliper.

Having spent so much, and taking the long view of what the trees would become, Mr. Jennifer wanted to really plant them right. He slaved for days with a pick in the heavy clay soil to dig four of the most beautiful holes I've ever seen, holes that would do justice to those giant burlapped root balls. He left loose soil at the bottom and planted the trees with dirt mixed with organic material. It was by the book. Our grandchildren were going to be climbing these babies in 25 years!

Over these years we have shaped them, given them regular deep waterings, and fertilized to encourage growth. The trunks seemed to grow imperceptibly. But finally, last year, the maples started sending up nice tall shoots.

Again this spring, my lovely trees began leafing out. Would we actually get some shade this year? All that money, all that care, all the time waiting would be worth it!


Well. Three leafed out beautifully. One did not. It sprouted a single branch of green leaves--while the rest of it appeared completely dead. I waited and watched. Surely it would leaf out! Finally we took a branch cutting to the nursery.

Introducing: verticillium wilt, my new mortal enemy.

What the heck is it?

"Verticillium wilt, caused by the fungus Verticillium albo-atrum ...  enters plants through the roots and spreads systemically throughout the water conducting vessels. This plugs the vascular system, resulting in the familiar wilt symptom. Depending upon how much of the root system is infected and where the fungus spreads in the tree, the disease may be very mild or it may kill the tree in one year."

Something I'd never even heard of and still don't completely understand is killing my tree.

How could I have known that verticillium fungus was present in the soil and silently attacking? That it was slowly poisoning the maple and cutting off its food supply, even as the tree looked so healthy and leafy in past years?

Indebted

Last week I learned that my usual pharmacy was out of my medication and would be for a while. It was a little hassle, but after calling around, I found it at another store.

Changing gears for a second: a friend is moving. It is a difficult move, and this is a tough time for her in general. I wanted to give her tulips for her new home because we had connected over the story that sometimes life is like the trip to Italy you always planned...and you ended up in Holland instead.

"Door Country Tulips" by James Jordan

Who would have thought that finding a pot of forced tulips in March would be next to impossible? I went from store to store. I was elated to finally find some at the superstore where I was picking up my transferred prescription. Only thing is, it was going to cost more than I had hoped. Oh, well. I decided the friend was more important and I could massage the budget later.

At the pharmacy I was told in passing that I now had a $25 store credit thanks to my transferred prescription. I was so surprised! I went to the checkout line with the tulips as well as a few groceries even though I had run out of grocery money.

The cost of a good deed...actually paid me.

The thing is, I had to act first--I had to have the desire to serve, find the flowers, go to the store, put them in my cart, and THEN I was ready to receive the completely unexpected blessing.

Welcome to Holland

This little story was written by a mother of a child with special needs, but I think it's a great metaphor most of us could apply when we feel like our plans for something important in our lives didn't turn out the way we had wished--at first. Until the wisdom of hindsight shows that Holland was where we were meant to be all along.

From one fellow traveler to another--welcome to Holland, my friend.

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.

It's like this…

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

"Tulip Fields in Holland" by Claude Monet

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

Unexpected Joy After Long Darkness: Poem of the Day

My husband and I pieced together all the places we had been at the same time before we finally met. The first time we know that we were in the same room was a small group gathered for a poetry reading by Leslie Norris in 1991 or 1992.

Mr. Norris gave some excellent advice on that fateful day when I didn't meet my husband. He said that one should read a poem every day. While I have failed to follow that advice most days, today I can correct it. And so can you.

Thank you, Leslie Norris, for holding up your candle in the dark world.

The Pit Ponies
by Leslie Norris

They come like the ghosts of horses, shyly,

from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17676749

To this summer field, this fresh green,
Which scares them.

They have been too long in the blind mine,
Their hooves have trodden only stones
And the soft, thick dust of fine coal,

And they do not understand the grass.
For over two years their sun
Has shone from an electric bulb

That has never set, and their walking
Has been along the one, monotonous
Track of pulled coal-trucks.

They have bunched their muscles against
The harness and pulled, and hauled.
But now they have come out of the underworld

And are set down in the sun and real air,
Which are strange to them. They are humble

And modest, their heads are downcast, they
Do not expect to see very far. But one
Is attempting a clumsy gallop. It is

Something he could do when he was very young,
When he was a little foal a long time ago
And he could run fleetly on his long foal's legs,
And almost he can remember this. And look,

One rolls on her back with joy in the clean grass!
And they all, awkwardly and hesitantly, like
Clumsy old men, begin to run, and the field

Is full of happy thunder. They toss their heads,
Their manes fly, they are galloping in freedom.
The ponies have come above ground, they are galloping!

The Parable of the Bed Frame

Mr. Jennifer and I were dissatisfied with our bed. It was creaky, so we propped it up on cinderblocks and lost all of the storage space underneath. It had a piece of moulding at the top that poked me in the head and made it impossible to sit in bed without hunching. It was pretty nicked from two moves and lots of kids and pets jumping on it over the years. We purchased this bed frame second-hand-in-the-first-place in 1999, so it had had a good, long life!

I guess over the years I became content to be discontent. It was easier to complain than do something about it. My frustration built up very gradually, but one day, I finally said, "Why am I putting up with this? Life is too short to spend 1/3 of my time in a bed I hate."

But new beds are expensive, right? Fear shuts down the desire for change before we even acknowledge the desire as a real thought.

I was brave. I pushed through the deprivation mentality:

• "I have to hold on to it, even if I'm unhappy, because at least I'll have something." 
• "What if what I want isn't out there?" 
• And even more scary: "What if I don't even know what I want?"

I knew I wanted change, even if I wasn't sure what that was yet. I looked on our local online ads. My exact bed frame was being sold by someone else--for $150! I said, "Well, no one would ever pay that for mine, but instead of hauling it to the dump, how about I throw it out there for $75?"