Planting the Anniversary Oak

In THIS POST FROM 2015 I talk about and show pictures from our engagement in San Antonio and anniversary almost 30 years ago, our germinating a live oak acorn from the Alamo and our ordeal with our 'Anniversary Alamo Oak.'  The story takes a tragic turn, but things are salvaged and good comes out of bad.  Click the link above to read it for background.

As described in the link above, the handful of Alamo Acorns (part 2) resulted in one of them germinating.  I nurtured it and now it is healthy and 3 feet tall.  We decided on a beautiful day this past weekend, to take it out of the pot and root it into good soil.  We loaded the wagon with all the gear needed for planting and walked out to find the perfect spot.

My Smiling Bride

We picked a spot in the lowest part of the yard where the soil will stay the dampest during droughts.  It is also close enough to the pasture where it will provide some shade to the farm animals as it grows taller.  I dug a nice hole, pulled the tree out of the pot, put it in the hole and put some good potting soil mixed with regular soil into the hole.

Tricia snapped a photo of me with our anniversary oak. 

And here is my wife posing with our anniversary oak.  Who knows how big the first one would be right now - 30 years.  It would be a nice-sized tree! 

The Queen and her tree

The little live oak is in a nice spot so that we can view it while swinging, sitting around our fire pit, or sitting on the back patio.  Yes, the tree just belongs here!

We fertilized it, made a 'well' around it with a berm and watered it in.  Each day I'll add water until we get a good rain.  It has been unseasonably dry in April, only raining 1 inch all month so far.  The spot we planted it in is close enough to the house where we can pull a hose out to it to water, if needed.

So now, we'll just let time tick on and watch our live oak tree grow.  Perhaps birds will eventually build their nests in the branches.  Maybe our great grand kids will climb its limbs.  Perhaps a grandchild will swing on a tire swing in its shade.  Maybe none of that will happen.  Perhaps the memory of the tree's meaning is the important thing - like the acorn growing a mighty oak, a marriage starts out with great hope and promise.  There are set-backs, droughts, rainy seasons, catastrophes.  But over time, if that tree is nurtured and the couple is patient and kind, a monument that stands the test of time can grow, blessed by God and built on the foundation of love.  And that legacy of love can be enjoyed by the couple as well as generations to follow.  Grow strong, little oak!

Love Like Crazy - Happy 50th Anniversary, Mom & Dad

The Gold Standard

On February 20th, my Mom & Dad celebrated their Golden Anniversary.  Fifty Years, wow!  Our extended family wanted to mark this milestone and honor them with a simple reception.  I'm not a party planner and don't know squat about decorating, but I do know who to ask and family members with party planning skills came through with flying colors.

The 50th Anniversary celebration was well attended by family and friends and well-wishers and we spent the afternoon visiting, laughing, and snacking on various cookies and cakes that had our blood sugar spiking to precipitous heights, I'm sure. It was a sweet time, both literally and figuratively.

I got a photo of the happy couple before the crowd arrived.

Happy 50th!

My Dad has a tradition of getting Mom a yellow rose each anniversary - one for each year of marriage.  He was able to locate 50 yellow roses to mark the occasion.

My sister has a cottage industry that she runs out of her home making/decorating cakes and was able to make a beautiful one that tasted great, or so I hear.  It was long gone by the time I drifted over to the cake table.  

Mom & Dad's preacher, Bro. Don, prayed a prayer thanking the Almighty for blessing their many years of marriage and for providing a model of marriage for all in attendance. After thinking about the day, I was amazed that we didn't ask them what the secret was to a successful and happy marriage.  I'll definitely do that, but I'm sure they'd answer - prayer. Lots of prayer!  And that made me think about a country song all about this exact topic.

Lee Brice sings a song called "Love Like Crazy" that encapsulates a good marriage with some timely advice whether you've been married 50 minutes or 50 years.  I've copied the lyrics below with the really important advice in bolded red.

"Love Like Crazy"

They called them crazy when they started out

Said, "Seventeen's too young to know what loves about"

They've been together fifty-eight years now

That's crazy

He brought home sixty-seven bucks a week

Bought a little 2 bedroom house on Maple Street

Where she blessed him with six more mouths to feed

Now that's crazy

Just ask him how he did it

He'll say, "Pull up a seat

It'll only take a minute

To tell you everything"

Be a best friend, tell the truth

And overuse "I love you"

Go to work, do your best

Don't outsmart your common sense

Never let your prayin' knees get lazy

And love like crazy

They called him crazy when he quit his job

Said them home computers, boy, they'll never take off

Well, he sold his one man shop to Microsoft

And they paid like crazy

Just ask him how he made it

He'll tell you faith and sweat

And the heart of a faithful woman

Who never let him forget

Be a best friend, tell the truth

And overuse "I love you"

Go to work, do your best

Don't outsmart your common sense

Never let your prayin' knees get lazy

And love like crazy

Always treat your woman like a lady

Never get to old to call her baby

Never let your prayin' knees get lazy

And love like crazy

They called him crazy when they started out

They've been together fifty-eight years now

Ain't that crazy?

If you click on the arrow below, you can watch the video of the song.

Never let your prayin' knees get lazy!  Indeed...

Happy 50th Anniversary, Mom & Dad.  Thanks for loving like crazy for 50 years. We love you!

Husband and Wife Trees

In our side yard we have two mature pecan trees that provide nice a nice, shady spot over some St. Augustine grass that spreads over the ground like a comfortable quilt.  Sometimes on those perfect days in October or in Spring when the weather is so magnificent that you can't help but whistle, we'll go outside and picnic right underneath those trees.  The pecans they produce are small and hard to crack, but you will be rewarded if you persevere, because the small pecans inside are so rich and oily and delicious.  Tricia made a homemade pecan pie last night using some of them and the secret ingredient (Steen's syrup).  Blog post and Recipe HERE  So doggone good!

The trees were planted long ago by a previous owner of the homesite we acquired in 2001.  While our home was being built, we'd come and sit underneath these trees and dream about what the future would hold for our family.  One of the pecan trees has a large, protruding knot, and I remember lifting our kids up into the tree so that they would sit on the knot to look out over the landscape. Can you remember climbing a tree as a child and marveling at the way that the view from way up there gave you a whole new vantage point?

The trees look like twins, don't they?  I mean, they are the same size, and if you were to scoot them together, they would fit together perfectly and the result would be one perfect tree.  Can you see that? I did some reading and found that there is actually a name for this occurrence.  The trees are called Husband and Wife Trees.

Our Husband and Wife Trees

According to Wikipedia, Eric Sloane was an American landscape painter and writer of illustrative works about cultural history and folklore.  He wrote the following in his book, Once Upon a Time: The Way America Was:

Trees were even involved in early American marriages: it was a New England custom to plant two trees at the entrance of a new home, known as "husband and wife trees."  When land was cleared and surrounding forests in New England were almost denuded by the need of charcoal to feed iron furnaces, there were some places in Connecticut where only husband and wife trees remained on the landscape.  Those trees still mark the location of many old farmhouses.

I think that is very, very interesting.  I like things that stand the test of time - things intentionally done - projects embarked on with a purpose.  In researching more about the subject of Husband & Wife Trees, I stumbled across something that is written so beautifully, it flows like honey and I want to share it with you.  This comes from an Agrarian blog called Granny Miller in This Post:

Husband and Wife trees.  Old timers called them that and you hardly ever hear the term any more. It has gone out of fashion: like marrying for life and farming.  Of course the expression is a folk term and an analogy taken from the material and natural world that was used long ago to describe a married couple’s relationship.

A married man and woman are like two separate trees planted in different holes at the same time. They are a permanent fixture in the landscape and together they watch the years and the seasons pass.

The trees are the same size and one does not hinder the growth of the other.

Because the trees stand so close together they are not as subject to wind or ice damage as a single tree is. The two together are more likely to survive adversity.

The trees grow very close to one another, but they are truly separate and there is space enough between them for the wind and air to pass. Their roots are entangled from beneath and how they are joined is hidden from the world. The trees derive their sustenance from the same Source and one cannot be separated from the other without risking them both.

Another angle of our Husband & Wife Trees

What an absolutely profound sentiment!  Husband and Wife Trees.  Now there's a tradition we need to revive.  Speaking of that, The Plain Garden Planting Cycle Found HERE says that from mid-October through November is the very best season for planting trees and shrubs.  Time to get busy.  I always like the old quote, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The next best time is TODAY!"