The Mighty Maple Tree

There is a beautiful maple tree in our back yard near the back of the fence that runs along the south side of the house. It’s up against a busy street. In fact, our town’s summer parade runs right along that street in the beginning of July. I’m excited to see what happens with traffic and neighbors with this old-fashioned community event that involves beauty queens, animals, large loud marching bands and public safety vehicles with sirens. My kids are hoping they’ll toss candy to them, but more about the parade when it happens.

The maple tree reaches to the sky, and I just marvel at the beauty of the spring green and smooth to rugged sections of bark. I know as a home owner we’d run into issues of having to rake all the leaves that are bound to fall as the temps dip lower, the sun retreats south, and the smell of autumn approaches. All the hard work will be worth it if the colors of fall are as spectacular as I imagine they might be.

But, somehow I forgot about what maple trees do in the spring time. They do indeed flow mercilessly a sweet and fragrant sap through their veins, and burst forth with a delicious sticky substance if tapped early just before the ground thaws. I forgot about the part where they sprout seeds and hurl them uncommitted to the air – letting the little twirly-whirls land where they will. My back yard is completely covered, littered, with these “helicopters” as my children so fondly call them, and as we called them as children. Raking in the seeds, and picking them out from around the veggies is quite a treat – not really. Sigh…the seasons of life are interesting – even to a tree.