Beginnings of a Backyard Tree Girl

Let’s start from the earliest tree memories. My story includes all of the places I’ve lived and visited across the U.S. and Honduras. Lived in Iowa, Kansas City, Branson, Wisconsin, Central and East Texas, and Florida. multiple family and friend visits as well as work travels to Michigan, Ohio, California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee (to name just some) so, trees… I’ve seen a few.

I’ve always been fascinated by trees and plants because of the beauty they bring- when I think ‘nature’, trees, woods, forests, mountains- below the tundra line, of course (who ever thought they would use the word tundra from the 4th grade vocabulary quiz, in a blog post…not me). I don’t remember falling in love with trees. but remember “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein? We never realize how special they are until it’s too late and they’ve fallen or been cut down, reduced to just a stump. But I digress, when I think back, the first trees that stick in my memory take me back to Wisconsin in 3rd grade. We had one large tree that was perfect for housing our treehouse on one side of the field where we would play baseball and football, but I REALLY loved the walnut tree, on the other side of the property.

My dad was the pastor of a little church, and we lived in the attached parsonage until I was in 4th grade. You could find me after church picking up the fallen walnuts and getting stained hands…they were just the right size to fit into a little hand to throw at whatever target was nearby. I’m not saying I did, not saying I didn’t aim at annoying neighborhood kids…but that’s a whole different blog! So when we moved away to Honduras, we left the walnut tree behind, but I was introduced to a HUGE variety of tropical trees that left me in awe!

The cashew tree was fascinating- learning about cashews and how the shells of raw cashews are coated in something and when they’re roasted or burned, the oil gets into the air and it’s toxic, and the fumes can be very dangerous. That’s why I don’t really balk at the prices any more. At one of our homes in Central America we also had two almond trees out font- who knew the locals prefer them for the fruit more than the nut?! That house…we had a goldmine because there was large avocado and large mango tree, both very abundant producers. The major fail was that at the time, I was not an avocado connoisseur that I am today. So, yes, I would say Central America further enhanced my fascination with plants. We can stop here for today and continue our story in the next post.

With that I leave you to consider what is the first tree you specifically remember and why?