The Stump
A few years ago we lost our beautiful big hackberry tree, grand in its old age and generous in shade. It had cracked at the top and rotted from the inside for years, and after a fierce windstorm it became evident that its time sharing beauty and shadows had come to a close. We had it cut down and hauled away, its memorial a 6 foot stump, years of rings bared for all to see. The kids have taken to playing on it, and while we want to have it ground down some day, it feels sacrilegious in a way to erase its existence and pave over it with...grass. Boring old grass.
For now, we'll keep playing and documenting its service to us, even after its fall.
