Something that I miss

Today I am to reveal something that I miss. Well, I miss a lot of things. I miss my convertible, I miss my jet ski, and I miss having the time to enjoy those things. But on a daily basis, I am reminded of something that is gone and I just haven't gotten used to it being gone yet. Sixteen years ago, I never thought that I'd still be in this same house all these years later. At that time, I planted twelve shrubs around my newly constructed house. The poor little things were nothing but twigs with a little root hanging off the bottom. But I pulled back the sod and stuck them into the freshly turn soil. I have to admit that I didn't know what I was doing. Some of them got stepped on by people that thought that they were just weeds. And others grew, but way to close to the house. That was the case with this one outside my office window. After sixteen summers of growth, it was taller than the house and took up a huge footprint in the yard. It leaned out away from the house partly because of the prevailing winds that are always blowing in that direction. Partly because one side of it didn't get the much needed sun light to grow and partly because I kept trimming the house side to keep it from scraping the side of the house constantly.



The view from my office window last summer



Being a Rose of Sharron, it always got a slow start to bud it's leaves. Everyone thought it was dead every spring. But when it did start to go, go it did. It's double blooms would weigh down the branches and bend them to the ground causing the tree to take up even more of the yard. It constantly was a buzz with every kind of bee that can be found in Michigan. That made cutting the grass around it very interesting sometimes. It was increasingly more difficult to get to the garden hose on the side of the house. Finally last fall after I had complained about the tree one time too many, Ed went outside, fired up the saw and the tree came down. We are left now with the stump and we are not sure yet if it will try to make a comeback or not. If it does, it will be kept trimmed to a manageable size this time.

Fear not my tree hugging friends. We have two other Rose of Sharron trees in the yard in more appropriate locations. And I'm sure that we will enjoy their beauty all summer. But for now, I miss the tree outside my office window.