After a goofy green Christmas and a boring winter, I am finally getting some of the
snow that I have been not-so-patiently waiting for.
I have had to sit through email after email from customer-friends who really felt the
need to regale me with stories of lolling in chairs by a cozy fire with laps full of pets and
pots of soup on the stove, while foot after foot of snow piled up outside their doors. Even
my Texas friends were getting my snow!
I won’t even go into the charming stories from my pickers in Europe, whose unusually
snowy landscape has prevented all manner of commerce this winter.
Ken just called from our little post office, just two miles from our house, saying that I
should not venture forth onto the treacherous country roads today. So my dream has come
true; I am snowbound ! But before I started to make a fire or soup or gather the cats to try
to make them sit on my lap, I decided to get out my camera to prove to the world (or at
least to anyone so bored as to be reading this missive) that now, I too, am one of the lucky
snow-bound ones.
As I look out into my snow-covered world, I spot my tree, a black locust, rumored to be
the oldest in the county. It is in my side yard. However, where I stand to look at out my tree
was once, in the1700’s, the front door of the house.
In those early days, when people were, in many ways, smarter or at least more in tune
with nature, a black locust was planted at the front door of a farmhouse. They are lightning
conductors and divert dangerous strikes away from the house, through the tree and down
into the ground. My tree is full of deep crevices in its bark and splits in its trunk from so
many years of standing on guard. These trees don’t die, they petrify but go on.
I am always grateful for my tree’s flowers, the shade and the protection. It feels just like
an old friend to me.