Nebraska Will Ship Me

 

When I was in Annapolis for a funeral last month, I marveled at a number of tremendous oaks that lined the neighborhood and the campus of St. John’s College.  I would never have surmised that they were quercus phellos but for the assistance of my Seek app. The trip we took last week introduced me to a number of other new oaks, like the Laurel Oak and today, with idle time between one must-do task and another I looked on the web site of the TyTy Nursery in Georgia were I bought my chestnut trees from.  The Laurel Oak and the Willow Oak were there, but they don’t ship again until next February.  Nature Hills Nursery however, in Omaha Nebraska, will ship me a Willow Oak today.  So, impulsively, I asked them to send me two. 

My wife likes flowers.  She doesn’t seem to like oaks.  We have too many, she suggests.  The front of the yard is certainly dominated by a few mighty Ents.  There’s a southern red oak, tilting away from our home which I haven’t otherwise seen growing naturally around here.  I’d guess it’s a hundred years old and well antedates the house’ construction, though I might be mistaken.  Across the drive way is a black oak that nearly as old.  The leaves are broader, darker and the crowns shape is completely distinct.  Thirty yards to the right is a big pin oak and down the driveway is the common northern red oak.  This tree is mightiest of all and also the dirtiest.  I drops tons of crap on our roof is marked for death by my wife. 

 

Down on towards the rail trail there are a few naturally growing white oaks with their distinctive bark and leaves.  On a good day Seek suggests the one we’ve let grow by the shed is a scarlet oak.  But I have my doubts. Just the other day, it contradicted itself, saying the sapling was a northern red, which makes much more sense, there beneath the great northern red, mother-tree’s canopy.   I went to a high school called Oakwood.  The yearbook was called the Quercus.  My daughter goes there now.  I have an affinity for the tree, certainly, though I never knew anything about different species before the last year or two.  Now I’m keen to introduce more odd oaks on to this plot.  I don’t know how much of their growth I’ll live to see, but regardless, it will be interesting to consider how it is their leaves turn and fall, and how they affect the view of the canopy.  I’ve imagined placing them at an angle on opposite side of the driveway, halfway up to the top. 

I took a call at 1:30AM with a prospect in Islamabad.  I prefer to get up early for a call, rather than stay up late.  So, I napped late in the day and prepped for the call and was ready for things by the time we started.  A video call, I thought I ought to put a shirt on over my grubby black tee and soon was chatting with the two men on the other line who surprised me by affably insisting that I was the spitting image of Quaid-i-Azam, the Great Leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.  My hair was pulled back into a ponytail that they couldn’t seen and I looked down at my image on the screen.  Incredulous I inquired if we were talking about the same person, who’s grey hair and high cheekbones I considered in my mind’s eye.  “Well thank you.” I suggested, thinking that this was probably much better than being told I looked like Mountbatten.

Wednesday, 07/07/21