Bleeping Oaks

I live in a place that’s surrounded by beautiful trees. It’s one of the benefits of living in the hills of North Carolina.

In the summer, the canopy of trees around my house is a rich, soothing green and the rustling of the breeze moving through the leaves is peaceful. In the fall, the canopy turns into an astonishing palate of yellow, orange, and red, followed shortly by an avalanche of vegetation as A-L-L those leaves cascade down into my front yard and back yard.

I read somewhere this year that the average tree drops somewhere around 200,000 leaves in the fall… making a leaf harvest in the multi-millions a pretty real possibility at my house.

Except for the oak trees. Oaks, as you probably know, hold on to most of their leaves all winter long. Unless it’s dislodged by a particularly strong gust of wind or a squirrel or something, the dry oak leaf only falls when the new leaf bud forces the old leaf to let go of the twig to which its attached. I have a selection of oak trees around my house, and they tease me. Usually about a day after I get all the other leaves out of my yard, the oak trees casually drop a couple of hundred of their leaves, just to mess with my head... the bastards.

So I’ve been waiting and waiting for the last of the oak leaves to fall so I can finally finish the harvest. This morning, when I looked into the rich, blue Carolina sky… I noticed that all of the oak leaves were gone… replaced by the little strings of new growth that will eventually become a new green oak leaf.

I’m taking this as a good sign. Something is going to change. After days and weeks and months of dry, brittle, tasteless anticipation just hanging around, rustling for no earthly good and trashing up the place, I believe that something positive is going to happen.

You just wait. You’ll see.