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| Our Beautiful Maple |
Sadly my favorite season is quickly coming to an end. The beautiful colorful leaves are almost gone. Winter with its cold winds and snow and ice is approaching too quickly. Daylight hours are getting shorter. But there are two major events that always come for us during these two months. One of these involves the holidays, the other involves an annual task.
This year my favorite holidays will be drastically different. With the threat of Covid, in an attempt to be safe, we will not have any of our traditional family celebrations. We will all celebrate in our own separate homes and that will be very difficult, but necessary.
Christmas Eve has always been my favorite family time. That evening we used to go to Candlelight Services and then gather together in our home. We would enjoy a great buffet and a special time of family fellowship.
Then I would show a special DVD which I always made for the family highlighting the year's events. I would also show one that I made 10 years previously and we would laugh and enjoy how much we have all changed over those years.
Next came a time of worship ... reading the Christmas story from Luke ... praying for the family, thanking the Lord for His presence and blessings during the past year and asking for His guidance in the coming year. Then we would exchange presents around the tree.
This year we have decided to go with a new 4.5 ft. artificial tree since it will involve less preparation and cleanup than the former larger tree did. And nobody else but us will see it.
Now speaking of trees, they are what create our second major event of this time. Over the years we planted several dozen trees on our property. My father warned me that someday I would regret doing this. And he was right. We have had to remove many of them at a cost of thousands of dollars. We still have about a dozen left, many of which are too big and should be removed. But now that I am retired we just don't have the funds to do this.
Most of those that remain are pine trees which don't take too much care. And lantern flies don't seem to bother them. We did need to take down a huge oak a few years ago and that was very expensive.
The one major hardwood that we still have is a huge maple next to our house. In the summer it gives shade and in the fall it is beautiful. But it does not drop its leaves until about Thanksgiving. Then we have piles to get rid of. Our township will take them without charge if we can get them to the street, but they stop taking them the first week of December. So it is a waiting game to see if they fall in time for us to collect them for removal.
Fortunately our lawn tractor can be used to gather them if they aren't wet. But, unfortunately, physically I've gotten to the point where I can't do it anymore. The entire family used to help us when we were all here for Thanksgiving dinner. But that is no more.
The year that my mother was killed in a November accident, a family from church surprised us and showed up when we weren't home and cleaned up all the leaves that had fallen. What a marvelous gift that was and we have never forgotten it.
So far this year we have gathered them three times. However, I shouldn't say "we". Two times my oldest grandson and his mother spent over an hour working on them. The other time it was my youngest son and my youngest granddaughter who spent about two hours working on them. We will need to attack this job at least one and maybe two more times this year.
So trees have become an integral part of our lives. We still have the leaves to collect but then we can look forward to another year of beauty when it blooms again in the Spring, gives shade in the Summer and then changes in the Fall And that always reminds us of God's care and provision for us in all the seasons of our lives.
TREES
by Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
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