A Poem as Lovely as a Tree?

It's dark, but this is our neighbor's enormous oak tree. People tell us all the time that that tree must be at least 150 years old, but Mike next door and I laugh because we have a photo of the two houses in 1929 with no tree there! When the new subdivision Foxcroft is in was platted in 1926 the land was all pasture. The realtors planted at least two fruit trees in the back of every lot and gave owners a choice of elm, white pine, or catalpa for the front. Only some of the pines are still left, but there are lots of BIG trees in our neighborhood.


Here is that photo:


And here is how our two houses looked from the same spot in May 2006:


Today is our last leaf vacuuming day, so we've spent even more time than usual raking.

We have four large walnuts. The story is that Bess brought these as seedling from the family farm when they moved to Foxcroft in 1928. I am tired of walnuts. I know I should be collecting and shelling them, but after a wheelbarrow load full in early October, I've been dumping them in the back ravine. I've put 7 wheelbarrow loads down there. This year they all lost their leaves in nearly a single night. Here are two in the front yard


Here is the really big one next to the garage:


This is a look at our side yard with our crabapple, and our neighbors giant oak and maple:


This is a look toward the far yard, we have another walnut, a black cherry, some hackberry, and then the neighbors pines:



Here is the oak across the street, it must be a pin oak since it still has all its leaves:


And with all these trees we then get a 3 foot high wall of leaves when we rake them to the street:


And here's a pile of walnut leaves and hosta debris:


This is what the street looked like when we left this morning, tonight they will all be gone: