Reflections - Tree of Peace

White Pine on Deck

 

 

Buckled into a narrow seat September 8, I put my hand on Spence’s knee. The airplane bumped through air pockets during our flight east to his college friend’s memorial. “We could plant a white pine in Jeff’s memory, a Tree of Peace like Chief Jake Swamp planted in Cook Forest.” Jeff had worked for world peace and loved nature, especially birds.

Spence covered my hand with his. “Good idea.”

“The pine could be our Christmas tree.” I’d lobbied for white pines before. They have softer needles than spruces and firs. And the piney fragrance beats the sweet spicy scent of the others.

“No. Pines don’t have a Christmas tree shape. We’ll plant it this fall.”

“Okay.” A fir or spruce would prick me again this holiday season.

We needed to find a white pine. Drive to a nursery, inspect the pines, and buy the prettiest. Simple. Making sure the nursery had white pines first made even more sense. I spent a day around the fall equinox on the phone. “Do you have any three-foot white pine trees with root balls?” I figured Spence could manage that size using his tractor and a dolly.

A dozen monotonous negatives came through the receiver: “No,” “no white pines,” or “just six footers.” Two nurseries offered hope.

A kind representative at Johnston Evergreen Nursery & Garden Center south of Erie said, “We usually have four-to-five-foot trees. Give me your phone number. I’ll look around and call you back.”

He didn’t call.

The nurseryman at Gales Garden Center in Willoughby Hills said in a hurried voice, as if rushing off to lunch, “We get small trees in for the holiday season. Check back then.”

Holiday season? The white pine might be our Christmas tree before we plant it.

Early October, I cornered Spence in the great room. “I don’t want Jeff’s tree planted in a bunch. I want it to stand alone.”

“A feature tree.” Spence folded his arms across his chest.

“I also want to be able to see it when I wash dishes.” Walking to the kitchen, I glanced out the window. “Where the wood pile is perfect, but . . .”

“I'm planning to move the wood.” He flashed me his “no worries” look. “I’m waiting for cold weather. I want the snakes to go underground first.”

Cold weather? The white pine would be our Christmas tree—if we found one.

Spence joined the search. Since he’d purchased last year’s Christmas tree at Gales on October 20, he checked there at the end of October this year. “No trees yet,” he told me that night. “The young woman in overalls said they’d get their trees in November. They would have three-foot white pines.”

“Great!” He had better luck than I did.

November came. Spence’s trips to Cleveland got hectic. He didn’t have time to stop at Gales. So I called. The female voice who answered said, “White pine? Is that a tree?”

Figuring the person must be a new seasonal employee, I patiently said “yes” and waited to be transferred to the garden center.

A man cleared his throat. “There’s a fifty-fifty chance we’ll have white pines. They’ll come in around Thanksgiving.”

Yikes! I’d wanted the tree decorated on Thanksgiving for Ellen and her husband Chris’s visit.

 

Johnston Garden Center

At the breakfast table November 7, I phoned Johnston Evergreen Nursery & Garden Center again. “Do you have three-foot white pines?”

The man, who introduced himself as Richard, said, “We only have four-to-five-foot white pines.”

“Thanks. Four-foot trees are too big. My husband and I are in our seventies. We’ll try for a three-foot tree in Cleveland.” I disconnected.

Spence, resting his feet in a chair, glanced up from his laptop. “Call him back. I could manage a four footer. I just need help loading it.”

I pressed redial.

“I’ll put in a dig order for a three-or-four-foot tree.” Richard paused, perhaps scribbling the order. “You can pick it up next week.”

Finally, we had a tree.

I asked Spence, “What day next week can you drive to Erie?”

“Why?”

“To get the white pine.”

“I’m getting the tree at Gales.”

Biting the inside of my mouth, I stopped myself from yelling, You told me to call Johnston’s! I took a deep yoga breath. “We don’t know if Gales will have a tree. Johnston’s has one.”

He growled. “Call first.”

Monday, November 13, I forced a confident voice and told the Johnston’s representative who answered the phone, “My name is Janet Wells. I have a dig order for a three-to-four-foot white pine. Is the tree ready?”

“Hold on one minute.” The young male voice returned sooner than a minute. “We don’t have any three-to-four-foot trees. We only have four-to-five-foot trees, but they have the same size root ball as the three-to-four-foot trees would have. There are fifteen to choose from.”

Would we ever find a three-foot white pine? “We’ll be there tomorrow unless I call you back.” I hung up and dialed Gales.

Their phone rang and rang and rang. The gruff voice answering in the nursery had wretched news. “All our trees are in. We didn’t get any white pines.”

No choice. We buy the white pine at Johnston’s or nowhere. Could Spence really manage the four-foot tree?

Passing the witch hazel trees on our health walk that afternoon, I asked. “Do you think you can roll a four-foot white pine up the ramp to the deck?”

“Why? We’re getting another tree for Christmas.” He stepped off the road and fingered the empty nut shells.

“Buying two trees doesn’t make sense. They’re expensive.”

“But we agreed.”

“Yes, if we got the pine in September or October. It’s a week before Thanksgiving.”

He grumbled. “If you want.”

The next morning, both of us wore sunglasses for the hour drive in the Maverick. Spence turned off the interstate onto gently rolling hills. We passed fields of evergreens in all sizes then fields of huge hoop houses. Johnston’s tan Evergreen Nursery building appeared first. The Garden Center was a quarter mile further down the road. No plants, fertilizers, or garden gadgets were on display. Two young men looked up from paperwork behind a counter when we entered.

“We’re the Welles.” I used a soft, firm teacher voice. “We have a dig order for a white pine.”

The first young man rolled his chair to the computer. “Let me check the location of the pines.” His fingers tapped keys. “Okay, we’ll check on them and come back.”

“Can’t we go too?” After the fifty-mile trip from Wells Wood, I didn’t want to stay in the office.

“Sure. Follow us,” the second worker said. “I think we’ll be in a red truck.”

They grabbed jackets and keys. Outside, the second young man shouted, “Actually it’s the green truck.”

We followed them to a hoop house beside the tan nursery building we passed driving in.

 

Evergreen Hoop House

In the hoop house, evergreens, bunched by variety, stood on their canvas covered rootballs along the sides.

I wished I’d worn boots like the fellas. My good shoes squished in the muddy gravel halfway down the hoop house to the white pines.

The first young man pointed to a tree with a tag and plastic streamers. “Richard marked this one for you, but you can pick any tree you want.”

Richard chose a full, shapely pine. It was also the shortest and prettiest. Spence and I agreed. “We’ll take the one Richard marked.”

The young men waved gloved hands at each other. The first one said, “I’ll get the forklift.”

“Do you have a dolly?” I interrupted the fellas. “I want to be sure Spence can move the tree.”

Either the fellas were terrific salesmen or they had crazy grandmothers who they humored. The second one fetched the dolly and showed me how to tilt the tree so Spence could slide the dolly under it. Humoring me too, Spence moved the tree over the muddy gravel.

“Wait! How will he get the tree out of the truck?”

“Easy.” The second young man maneuvered the tree to the center of the hoop house and signaled the forklift. “He can slide it out and let it drop to the ground.”

I gasped.

“It won’t hurt the tree. It will be fine.”

The forklift rolled in, grabbed the rootball, and whisked the pine to the Maverick with its tailgate down. Spence wrapped Great Grandma Michael’s nine patch quilt around the rootball and trunk. The fellas used bungee cords to secure the tree.

“That’s good enough for now.” The first young man handed Spence the bed extender (a gate to hold cargo in when the tailgate is down). “We’ll put burlap around the branches at the garden center.”

At the garden center, the men wrapped the tree. I went inside to pay. 

Richard, a bald, middle aged man, waited for me. “I lifted four trees with their ropes to be sure your husband could manage with a dolly. I chose the lightest tree. It happened to be the prettiest.”

“Thank you. You did a great job.” I handed him my credit card. “The tree is beautiful.”

Back at Wells Wood, Spence parked in front of the log house and removed the bed extender. With an oomph, he shoved the tree a couple of inches. I couldn’t imagine how he’d manage sliding it across the whole bed and tailgate. He wrapped bungee cords around the ball, put on garden gloves, and tugged. The cords expanded like elastic. I figured he’d need to get rope. He didn’t get a rope. He tugged some more. The cords stopped expanding, and the tree slid to the end of the tail gate.

Spence nudged the tree. Thud. It landed, wobbled, and, as the young man promised, survived unharmed.

I tilted the tree. Spence pushed the dolly under the rootball and rolled the pine—two feet. The tree slipped off the dolly. We put the tree back on the dolly, and he rolled a bit more. The pine slid off the dolly much easier than it slid across the truck bed. Repeatedly remounting the pine, Spence rolled it into place by the sliding glass deck doors.

Unlike other Christmas trees Spence had rolled onto the deck, the white pine tree didn’t look forlorn without ornaments. Its lush green needles and bushy shape gave it a healthy glow.

Inside, I heated a bowl of homemade chicken barley soup, gazed at the tree through the glass door, and ate. Maybe I could wait to decorate.

An extension cord popped through the outside deck door handle. Spence stepped inside. “Your electric cord is ready. You can decorate after lunch.” He walked to the sofa and settled down for a nap.

He’d helped so much and he didn’t even want the white pine to be our Christmas tree. I dumped the soup bowl in the sink and fetched the decorations.

While I reached up to affix a peace dove to the long leader, sunshine rather than blowing snow hit my head. Soft pine needles caressed my fingers. I slipped on cardinals, a turkey, and an ornate bejeweled bird that would have made our friend Jeff smile. After hanging bird ornaments for bird loving Jeff, I completed decorating with our traditional sand dollars, gold garlands, and white lights. The tree gave me occasional whiffs of its piney fragrance.

Because the day revolved around the white pine, we didn’t take our health walk until dusk. A lone crow cawed. Other birds had settled for the night. Rounding the bend, lights on the white pine tree sparkled in the gloaming. Jeff's memorial tree, his Tree of Peace, had become our Christmas tree. The long journey, begun as an idea on a plane ride September 8, had ended. The spirit of peace and Christmas welcomed us home.

 

Ornamental Red Bird