First Published on 06/24/2025
I’m glad I trimmed Big House’s front yard’s bangs yesterday. Spent an hour or so wandering about under front yard maples trimming low hanging branches. As pruning advice, landscaper Danny Aylor once told me a man ought to be able to walk his lawn without knocking his cap off. I had several branches capable of such so I trimmed.
Trimmed some lower shrubs too. A big old overgrown boxwood, planted about 1949, has bushed out to make it dangerous to mow around. Got whipped in the eye Friday when I tried to get riding mower up reasonably close. Weedeater shaft wasn’t long enough to trim around it comfortably either. It got both bangs and side burns trimmed.
Front yard Maples and the old Hackberry cover highway side of Big House pretty well. Trees here now were small when I was young Small, children of the two big Maples they’ve replaced.
There were two big Maples out front, a “hard” Maple and a “soft” Maple. I’m not sure what species they were. I never was good at remembering characteristics of different Maples. Some claimed one was a Norway Maple and the other was a Silver Maple.
Those big Maples never seemed entirely quiet. Always at least a few leaves moving. I think deep shade they provided cooled air around them which flowed out along the ground making way for warmer air to filter down and be cooled in turn. Hot summer afternoons, that shade crept up and over Big House. Altogether natural air conditioning without clicking relays, humming compressors and thermostats.
At any rate, they stood out front of Big House, providing shade, shelter, tons of leaves for raking exercise and gutter plugging, and lots of small branches to be picked up at Mom’s suggestion based on her whims. Those two big trees took up lots of my chore time year around.
I never climbed them much. Great branches for tree houses, but hard to get to. Climbing was a chore. Needed ladders and Pap didn’t want boards nailed up. Tough for a young tree house building boy to shinny up a tree trunk four feet in diameter and branches were way above jumping height.
Soft Maple was more Mom’s tree. It shaded Big House’s front porch. She often relaxed there with a book or sewing on hot afternoons. In later years she painted landscapes from photographs and found good light and comfort out front. Benches out there fit her better than Pap or me so she mostly had her peace and quiet uninterrupted.
Pap’s favorite hot day porch was the well porch. Actually the fitted wooden top to Big House’s hand dug well, just right height for comfortable sitting, it offered open view of everything coming in Big House’s lane. Hard Maple cooled the breezeway around well porch.
Hard maple died late 1980s. Half fell on Big House. A couple years later other half fell missing Mom’s birdhouse and lilac bush by inches. I cut stump down low and it rotted. Nothing remains except memories of those who enjoyed its shade.
Twice cabled together, I decided soft maple was a growing danger to Big House. I had it cut down a couple years ago. Convinced it was hollow and dangerous, I regretted destroying it when I found its trunk mostly solid.
Those big trees were homes to uncounted birds, small animals and black snakes. They provided shade and comfort to several iterations of Big House’s occupants. They provided another generation of healthy offspring whose bangs I trimmed yesterday.
