When we first visited this house in the woods, it was the trees that enchanted me. I like water, but I am neither the sailor or the fisherman that my husband is; It is trees that speak to me most. My childhood was spent climbing them, often with a book in hand. A weeping willow witnessed our engagement, and I've discovered special trees in each place we've lived- whether stateside or abroad. So it's been hard on my tree-loving heart to see all the damage of the recent (small) tornado that came through these parts. Broken trees line our streets right now, a final chapter to our very stormy summer. Some toppled over from clinging just to mud, while others have been hit hard by lightening and wind. The strongest winds came a couple weeks ago, when a couple small tornadoes made their way through here. The first one hit a neighboring lake, so we were prepared when ours arrived a few days later. We were on our way to the basement when we heard the Crack- and weren't surprised to see the damage the next day. One of my favorite trees- a 75 feet tall, 100 year old red oak- had been hit by lightening and split down the middle. The fallen half fell towards the lake, on top of the upper deck that had been destroyed last year by another fallen tree. (Which made us happy that repairing it hasn't been higher on the list this summer!) Today the cutters came and fell the second half, artfully landing it right on top of the first half. "You'll have a lot more sunshine," they said during the process. And I agreed, nodding my head. It' true, there's a gaping space of sky where it's leaves used to be and sunshine is a nice thing to have. But- between us- I'll always prefer a tree. So I'm off to find a new special tree, perhaps even the one I photographed above earlier this summer? In the meantime there's plenty of sticks to continue to add to our fort, which has survived the storms:

Which is a good thing, because little climbing legs keep disassembling what we've put together so far! They've turned the stick wall into a ladder, quite naturally, and scale up it one at a time (per Mama's request) to sit on the upper beam. And my heart goes out to my Mama, who often saw my little face peeking out from among the leaves too. I bet it caused her heart to skip a beat too- with this same sweet mixture of worry, love and pride that comes from trusting children so they can learn to trust themselves.