Well, the Colonel is dead. Our big old backyard oak tree has bitten the dust.
As I sat watching its demise, my mind wandered to thinking about the 150 years or so that this tree has lived on our little farm. It's kind of sad if you think about it.
We know about the last 75+ years or so when my husbands relatives lived here and built our little farmhouse. When we first got the property about 7 years ago, there was an old, old tree swing hanging out of the Colonel - much to unsafe to use. We took it down to prevent any young'un's from hurting themselves.
No telling what stories this old tree could tell! Kind of like an old house, I suppose. Tony's great uncle Claude built this little house by hand and he was not much over five feet tall. He and his wife raised two little girls here. The girls were old maid sisters until they died and left the farm to Tony's family. I didn't meet them until they were in their 70's, and they went on to live and do everything together until their deaths at 80-90. They always reminded me of the "Sisters" on the Waltons. Probably even had some of the "recipe", too!
I think about those little girls growing up here on the farm, probably playing under the shade of this old tree and maybe even climbing it! Who knows - perhaps it had low hanging branches at one time, perhaps they played dolls or had tea parties, or perhaps they were tomboys... I know our little garden shed held Claude's gardening and farming tools. He raised crops out here, and the road was little more than dirt than runs in front of the house. As we have gardened here, we've found bits of harness and tools - metal plow parts, bits, horseshoes, gears and stuff that who knows what it was - all buried in the dirt. When I till my garden, there's no telling what might pop up. One side of the garden shed used to be a chicken coop. It now stores my own chicken feed and pine shavings.
I wonder if the girls helped their mom and dad out with chores as they got older. Surely, they fed the chickens, helped in the garden, learned to can and cook and sew with their momma - of course, in the OLD ways of doing things. I have the original pie safe that Claude built for his wife in my little kitchen still as well as other items that he built and that were saved through the years.
The Cherokee Indians were native here and roamed parts of East Texas in our area at one time. Wonder if they ever saw this old tree? Wonder if they ever had to hide behind it or in the top of it? Our pastures have raised crops and cattle, and at one time in Tyler's early history and rose boom, our fields were covered in roses. I would love to have seen that! Nowadays, the big product from our area is oil. There's drilling going on all around us and has been since back in the early 1900's.
Our family has enjoyed this little farm place for the last few years. Tony and I moved out here about 3 1/2 years ago. We've enjoyed the Colonel shading our deck and back yard and just being such a conversation piece. We hoped to be able to put up another tree swing for our grand babies someday, but that is not to be now. Rest in peace, Colonel - you've seen a lot of history in your years!
