Wednesday, October 1, 2008

To stumps

This week, something happened that I never really thought would happen. In my backyard grow two enormous Lombardy Poplars.



They've been growing for (let's see... I think my parents moved there in 1979... so) about 29 years. The mathematically astute will note that my age lies to the left of the trees' age on a standard number line -- they've always been there as far as I'm concerned.

The two giants are the grown remnants of a family of dead-looking sticks, which arrived in the mail some 30 years ago. My mom planted several of the sticks along our back fence looking forward to a beautiful wall of leaves. My dad accidentally (wisely) mowed over all but two of them, foreseeing the wall of leaves annually becoming a lake of leaves to rake up. And the two became the poles for our hammock.

But last week, because they're beginning to die, they're chopping the trees down. I went over after one had already been half cut down. This is what's left:


I'm sad that the trees are going -- it's almost like they're part of the family. But that's the way life goes, I guess.

After saying farewell to the trees Saturday morning, I went hiking with some friends around Y Mountain. We started in Rock Canyon and came down Slide Canyon (to the South of the Y on the mountain).

The leaves were spectacular!


We only took two "detours." I'm really glad we took the second detour because it landed us in an enormous, deep valley. That's where this picture was taken:


and this grovey picture:


Val brought Buster, who buried several biscuits along the trail:


We had to move through prehistoric leaf-bushes:


There were bugs:


and flowers:


and logs:


and helicopters:

and sun:


We stopped for a picnic at the meadow just inside Slide Canyon. I had bought bags of fresh peaches and pears from a fruit stand on Canyon Road the day before, so I delighted on those, some graham crackers, Ammon's butter crackers, some cookies and a spoonful of peanut butter in the meadow.

And then we descended to the Y:


This is the first time I've hiked down the Y without having first hiked up it. My knees hate hiking down the Y.

After getting off the mountain, I completed my adventures with a trip to the French bakery on State Street. I had two wonderful fruit tarts. And later that evening I enjoyed a French movie, "The Chorus" at the International Cinema.

So the trees are gone, but life goes on. And General Conference is this weekend!

5 comments:

Barbaloot said...

Iffy-those are some fantastic nature pictures! Sorry about the trees being taken away.

When my parents cut the tree down in our front yard all the neighborhood kids got mad at me. Jerks. I'm still not over it....

Miri said...

That last picture in particular, of the sun, is amazing. I love it.

I hate when something like your trees happens. My grandmother had a huuuuge oak tree in her front yard all the years that we were growing up, and we always played on it. She moved several years ago, and obviously we couldn't play on the tree anymore because someone else lived there. Not the same as them being cut down, but it was still a very sad day.

Kimberly said...

So I totally didn't know you had a blog!!! How are you doing?!? Life is great in the big world of D.C.!!! woo WOO! Hope life is great!

martha said...

wow you had a big group go this time! i'm sad i couldn't go but alas, i am mobile. great pics by the way. i've decided i like your pictures. a lot. :)

Jenna Kae said...

those pictures are incredible! it's still 100 degrees down here in phoenix, so i got my fall fix from your post! thanks!