Now ya’ll know I love my trees! And this story just warms my treehuggin’ heart!

On Friday, we had another monster storm. It was different from the one on Thursday, because Thursday’s storm was a big, crazy, wild swirling! And on Friday, it was like this giant wall of water moving south at very high speed. It was just as nuts, but, different.

But on Friday, the air raid siren went off before the storm. Interesting concept, wouldn’t you say? It warned us all ahead of time about the coming storm.

Yeah, because on Thursday, the siren went off after the storm. That would be after I’d nearly been blown off the balcony! Thanks, guys!

In driving around town, the affects of those storms is jaw-dropping. I imagine most of it is from the Thursday storm, because, that was the one that felt tornadic to me. Trees down everywhere – Mark said he even saw an 8o ft. tree downed! Yikes!

I wonder, do you think that siren going off on Thursday after the fact, was a CYA maneuver?

Why yes, as a matter of fact, it is! My daughter and son and I were talking outside this morning while waiting for the bus and Sammie said something about the piano being a percussion instrument. And at first, I was like, “What?!” That’s crazy. But the more I thought about it, the more I could see that it did, indeed, make perfect sense. I told her I was going to have to look that up when they left.

So I did – and it’s true! That silly, smart girl is always teaching me stuff!

And I almost always have this running list in my head of stuff I need to “Google”. And don’t you just love the way we all turned ‘Google’ into a verb? The kids and I were talking about that the other night, as well – assigning new parts of speech to words. We were trying to think of more examples of that. Patrick came up with a few, I think. Perhaps I need to ‘Google’ that, too! What I am saying, though, is there is a little notepad up in my brain, that constantly is has a list on it, long or maybe short, of ‘things’ that I want to look up. Sometimes it takes me months to take the time to do it, and sometimes, like the piano thing this morning – I do it within hours of thinking of it. And it’s funny, because when I finally look up ‘that thing’, it feels good. Like really scratching something off of my to-do list. Silly, huh?

Another thing I was wondering, that I’ve been wondering since last July, and been meaning to look up ever since, is about pecan trees. See, we have one in our yard – just one. And my mother-in-law says that you need two to really see a good crop of the wonderful nuts that hubby and I just go crazy for! She said that you need a female tree and a male tree. Ok, I can see that – as there are female and male cottonwoods, and only one of the little buggers actually produces cotton. Messy thing that it is, I can’t remember which one it is. But I can tell you that it makes a gigantic mess – we had one at my folks house for years and years until we had to cut it down because the roots were messing with the neighbor’s yard and maybe even her pipes. And then you’ve got mulberry’s and fruitless mullberry’s – I just love the fruitless mullberry’s – great trees those are! (Hey, did I just sound like Yoda? Cool! Maybe I’m becoming wise!) But the fruited ones – oh my! I hope you don’t have sidewalks – because they will be almost solid purple! So purple, it’s almost black. Good heavens, what if you had a white car and forgot to not park it under the tree? Yikes!

So you see, what she was saying could definitely be feasible, but, being the good daughter-in-law that I am, I really wanted her to be wrong. And I really didn’t agree that there were female and male pecan trees – I figured being number one, from Texas, and number two, niece of Uncle Pat, who loved to take all of us kids gathering pecans in the fall – that I would’ve/should’ve heard of such a thing.

And then there’s God – always steppin’ in to teach me a lesson! We are both wrong and we are both right. Deflate my balloon, why don’t ya?

On a page from the Clemson University website, I discover that you do need two pecan trees, but that they both have female flowers and male flowers. And the reason that you need two is for adequate pollination of the female flowers by the male flowers. So there you have that.

Now, the one thing that I am having trouble finding out today is why, when we’re dingy (which I really rarely am!) people call us space cadets. I mean, think of the people who work at NASA – pretty smart group o’ dudes, there, right? Is it from the old BBC television show? Is it from the book from 1987, called Space Cadet, written by Robert A. Heinlein? There seems to also have been a 1997 movie, but, I swear people have been saying it longer than that. And how would you word the query properly to find the answer, anyway?

Things that make you say – hmmm…..

Out damn cold! Out I say!

I was so thoroughly enjoying our warmer weather – and guess what?

SO WERE MY TREES!!!

My dogwood tree is ok, she just lost a lot of her blooms, but, she it otherwise as beautiful as ever!

My other two trees, however, are in such a state I can’t believe it! My pecan tree and my crepe myrtle actually have BLACK LEAVES – yes, you heard me correctly – black leaves. Not only blackened, but, also wilted. They had just started to grow their precious, pretty green leaves – when BOOM! Out of nowhere comes along this cold snap!

Will they re-bloom? Will they start over? How does this work, when Mother Nature plays a dirty trick on our lovely trees? Anyone? Anyone?

Well, let me tell you, I surely do hope it is hard-wired into their DNA to just start anew after something like this. It would surely be sad if it weren’t.

I have been wanting a crepe myrtle for so long, and Mark never wanted one because they are so ‘messy’ – it’s a beautiful mess – what’s he talking about? But now that we moved into this house and there already is one – not much he could do about it. Yet, anyway. And believe me, he has threatened. Ugh.

The really cool thing is that this is my first crepe myrtle and it is the most beautiful one that I’ve ever seen! Really! It is on the street-side corner of the lot – so there are no walls or fences hindering its growth, and it is big and full and gorgeous!

So I sure hope re-generating is in its gameplan! Oh my!

And how happy do you think I was when I found one company that addressed both of those parts of me??

I can tell you, I was so excited! I was introduced to Website Magazine just the other day. I read their online version of their February issue and just loved it, so I ordered a subscription – which just so happens to be free if you live in the States!

While I was reading and thoroughly enjoying their magazine, I noticed a program that, for one, caught my ‘Hippie eye’, but, also – surprised me to see in a magazine about web marketing.

The program is called ReplaceATree.org – and guess what? The foundation is actually run by Website Magazine!

The Replace A Tree Foundation, in association with Sustainable Harvest, will plant one new tree for every subscriber to their magazine! Totally awesome!! The program was just begun this year, and they will begin by planting 120,000 trees retroactively.

And you can even find your tree! How cool is that? I’m gonna check into that and if there is a picture, I will definitely come back here and post a picture of my tree!