Adopt a tree

Several years ago, I journeyed up to the botanical gardens in Atlanta to take a class on drawing trees. It was a wonderful experience. I didn’t produce a masterpiece, but I had a wonderful day outside. Plus, I learned lots about looking. There are many ways to see a tree.

The instructor suggested we adopt a tree for a year. She didn’t mean we should dig up a tree and take it home. No, she suggested we pick a tree in our own yard or somewhere that we were regularly and study it. Draw it. Look at it from all directions and different times of day for the year.

Know the tree.

I propose to do that only with photographs instead of drawing. I’ve picked my tree. I didn’t choose one of our towering pines—more about them another time, nor did I choose a fine live oak. I’ve picked a little tree near the curb in my front yard. A persimmon tree.

When we first moved in, I had no idea what the somewhat scrawny tree was. The first year we were here it produced exactly one persimmon, and a bird ate it. Now twenty years later we had a hugely abundant harvest. We gave fruit away, we mailed fruit across the country to friends. We munched on persimmons for breakfast and dinner. What bounty. Now that we have had some frost the fruit is gone. What we did not pick to eat or share, the birds made sure did not go to waste. This afternoon the tree was bare save for one lonely, last piece of fruit.