I know the weatherman says we’ll get rain, not snow, but it will be a cold hard rain. I can feel it coming in my bones. And the air has got that crisp feeling and the twigs will snap if you try to bend one on the dormant bush at the end of the walk.
The house is filled with trees. The Christmas tree in the front room is now fully decorated. We finished that late yesterday. I put the skirt around the trunk this morning after filling the stand with plenty of water. Tree looks fine. Decent shape, right size.
But the trees I am most concerned about are the 9 Giant Sequoia I have in a bucket in the back room. They arrived a day or two ago by U.S. Post and I didn’t realize what they were till yesterday when I finally opened the package. My sister ordered them and had them sent here… but they will eventually be planted and grow in California where Giant Sequoias belong. For the time being I am tree-sitting – at least for a day or two. My job is to keep the roots moist but not soaking wet. No mold or fungus allowed. And to keep them cool. Can’t put them on the back porch. They’ll freeze…can’t keep them in the main house, they’ll be too hot. Maybe the cellar… ? though it’s dark down there, it’s better than anywhere else. Tomorrow I will pack them up and send them on their merry way – heading for the west coast and a future life that could last a thousand years. All from a little something that is sitting in a bucket in the back room.
A thousand years is a very long time. Think about it. A thousand years ago there was a very different population living on this planet. No internet, no TV, no movies, lots of corn and soybeans, and buffalo and rice and viking ships! A thousand years ago was 1012… the dark ages in Europe!
What will the world be like when these sapplings reach maturity in 3012??? Perhaps we will have left them to themselves as we explore Mars and live on the moons of Jupiter. Could happen. Stranger things have.
I’m not sure that I would trade our life span for that of a tree. I don’ t think I could stay in one place that long without going mad…or madder than I am at present!