FINAL EN-TREE

Alas, like most good things in life, the En-Trees have come to an end... at least for now.

For my final En-tree I would like to share with you where I believe my love for trees comes from.

Most of my family lives in a giant chunk of land, that we call "Jenkinsville." This magical place is covered in trees. When I was a kid, my best friend Blake and I would go on adventures, playing X-Men, mining for gold in the creek, setting-up booby traps for intruders, etc. My Paw Paw (that was my mom's dad), my dad, and sometimes my uncle would go and cut down dead trees, split them, load the wood into the trucks, then spend the rest of the day stacking the wood. Another thing that we'd do with Paw Paw was pick-up pecans from all the many pecan trees in our yards. My aunt and uncle had a giant sweet gum tree that would leave "sticky balls" or as I liked to think, "grenades" all over the place. Being old country folks, we also had a tired swing hung from a tree. We had a pear tree that in the summer was yellow jacket central. We had an apple tree that got struck by lightening and looked amazing. There's a tree in my parent's back yard that, to this day, has never fallen over, but is leaning at an almost 45 degree angle. When hurricane Hugo came through York county, it turned hundreds of trees over on our property, leaving the root ball exposed. This was a perfect place to hide.

Of all the trees I've encountered in my life, my favorite, by far, is this giant oak tree behind my grandparent's house. It's ginormous! We always had huge family picnics for someone's birthday under it. There was a tire swing attached to it at one point. We used to rake the leaves under it and have a wild rumpus. If you were working in the garden, it was just close enough to sit under for a minute in the shade. It's kinda become a "family tree" for my family tree.

I think that most of all, my love for trees comes from my deep love for my family. There's at least one story that deals with a tree for each member of my family. I love my family so much. If there's any of you family members reading this, know that you have helped my roots grow and continue to nourish this little tree.

***UPCOMING: MY NEXT BLOG SERIES... FIRE!!!***

ALSO, I have this ticker at the bottom of the page (scroll down, it's black with yellow numbers), since my 500th view is coming up, I've decided that whomever is the 500th view gets a prize. Now, in order to find this out, whomever is that person, needs to let me know... be honest people, if 5 people say they were the 500th, I'm just gonna go with the first person, anyway. BUT, the prize will be, I will write an entire blog based on YOU! My favorite memory of you, the reason we're friends, etc. So, lucky number 500, I can't wait to talk about you!