There’s a big, 5 deep row of pine trees on the property we just bought.
Somewhere in its line of owners, one of the folks who lived there had connections to a family member who ran a tree farm….so there are a lot of interesting plants and trees on the land.
I guess that they planted the trees as a wind break….it’s a good-looking, giant hedge.
Yesterday, I was out doing some clearing and I started to trim up the lower branches of the trees so that you could walk around in there.
It’s like something out of a Narnia book now.
Not literally, of course….I didn’t find an enchanted wardrobe or anything….but it’s kind of interesting with its thick carpet of pine needles and the sunlight filtering through the dense upper branches.
Maybe I’m easily impressed….but it feels kind of “magical”.
It’s going to be another fun place for the kids to play when I have it all cleaned up.
Until I started in on the overgrown and dead lower branches, it was just another weird element in the conglomeration of weird elements at the new place.
When I couldn’t get in there to see what was going on it was a creepy bunch of trees.
Now it’s kind of magical.
Who would have thought it would be like that?
Pine forest….pine forest….pine forest….
My father and I used to get our hair cut at a place called Pine Forest Barbershop.
Butch and Leon….father and son.
My father would go to Butch’s side of the shop….he was the young one and would give my father the “old” haircut….the flattop….and I would go to Leon’s side for my hip long hair ….haircut.
Pine Forest.
We went there for years….I went there by myself later when I was independent and roaming around.
I’d go and get a haircut and then go eat some cheap Sweet and Sour Chicken at the Chinese restaurant a couple of buildings down the road.
It’s good to have some routines.
I don’t know if Butch and Leon gave the best haircuts in town…I think that they gave good haircuts….but I don’t really know.
It was good to go see them….see some familiar faces and feel like you belonged somewhere.
It’s good to feel like you belong.
It was just a habit….just another thing that I took for granted.
It was another thing that I did with my Father.
All of these moments….all of these mundane moments that go by too slowly….and then when they’re gone, feel like a cloud flying by in a hurricane.
I would dig out our septic tank with a garden spade if my Father could sit at the edge of the hole and visit with me while I worked.
This pine forest is carpeted with pine needles and filtered sunlight.
I build memories whether I’m good at it or not.
This is my shot to give something away before I go.
I wonder if the quiet routines will be the things that my children remember?