In Love with Trees

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The Cottonwoods in winter
Ever since first moving into our Arivaca home in October 2016, I have spent morning after morning in my front garden, and sunset after sunset, gazing at the stand of giant Cottonwood trees along Arivaca Creek.  I never get tired of their great beauty, whether in the full flush of spring growth as they are now, or with bare branches silhouetted against the sky during the coldest, darkest days of winter.  

Their great beauty exists on a much deeper level too:  For many decades they have grown there, with thousands of woodpeckers and nuthatches prying umpteen insects from the cracks in their bark, and generations of towhees scratching for beetle larvae between their massive roots.  How many songbirds have bathed in the pools below them, and how many hawks have looked down from the top of their canopies?  How many Coatimundi have slept in their branches?  These trees have ancestors that grew here for many hundreds of past years too.  How many Mesquite beans were ground on stone matates in their deep shade on a summer’s day, and how many stories told below them in the glow of firelight?
Cottonwoods in spring

All of these things and more are what passes through my conscious and subconscious mind as I look at these Cottonwoods that tower over the nearby Mesquites and everything else, including me.  My heart was moved the first time I laid eyes on them in the spring of 1993, and the feeling just grows stronger every day that I now get to live within sight of them.



 
 



Yet even a small tree can be overflowing with life.  On this 2019 spring morning, I gazed in delight at the 10ft tall Apricot tree that has burst into bloom over the past week in my garden, as a Hooded Oriole and Gila Woodpecker sipped its flower nectar along with Broad-billed, Rufous, and Black-chinned Hummingbirds, as well as several Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies and dozens of honeybees.  What a beautiful banquet for them, and what hope I feel for a  resulting bounty of apricots I might get to eat this summer!

I can’t help but wonder, “Is it possible to be in love with trees?”  Perhaps you think that’s a silly question, or that these Cottonwoods pale in comparison to the Redwoods of California or the Baobabs of Africa, or that Apricot flowers are not so special.   Maybe you're right, but that doesn’t change the pitter-patter in my heart!





Photo Credits:
Cottonwoods in winter by Emily Bishton
Cottonwoods in spring by Emily Bishton
Apricot blooms by Emily Bishton

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