Jim was out today

Back in August, or was it September? Anyway when Laura and I first started walking we established a route- after a few weeks a bad storm came up one night. When we were walking our route we found an older Gentleman pacing outside his house that had a huge oak tree laying in giant pieces across his lawn. He told us how it had come down cracking his roof, narrowly missing the room they were in because of some wires that had been strung a few years back. The oak was huge, the hole in the center was large enough to fall through, a man could not put his arms around the whole trunk - maybe two men.
So every few days we'd meet Jim again and he'd tell us the story. After a few weeks he calmed and seemed to know who we were and we'd watch as they cut and cut and finally took away that whole tree and then he waited and watched for the men to fix his roof, gutters and the parts that were broken. We'd talk to him and got to know him over the months watching his house get fixed, his lamp put up and his lawn and a few flowers start to grow again. Fascinating man who grew up and lived his life around here. We didn't connect for a few months this winter and finally in May we saw him once and now he's out again.

This is an new oak seedling that came up and Jim planted it right where the old oak stood. He watches and waters it.

Jim and Laura chatting - June 12, 2009