I went to check on my new little trees — mere saplings — in the backyard this weekend. Will they thrive? Will they die? I don’t know. But they sit on the back hilltop and on the front-yard flats in accordance with their sun needs and drought resistance. Perhaps there will be berries and flowers soon (next year or a few more down the line). I can only hope.
I am probably the only person planting trees who would laugh at what I found at the top of the hill when I checked on one that was more afterthought than intentional, seeing as I really had no good place to plant all ten saplings I received as a “gift” from the Arbor Day Foundation and a new young plum tree.
Up there, lonely and away from the powerlines running up the right-of-way between my yard and the back row, the sapling stood tall, with an unexpected gift at the base.
Some critter, probably one of the three foxes that like to hunt the neighborhood, left a solitary turd at the base of the tree.
Was it commentary? Was it fertilizer? Was it even one of the foxes?
I’m no expert in fox turds, but it looked too big to be the possum’s. Too small for even a small dog fed on commercial food. Not the right shape for the deer or the rabbits. Raccoons? Maybe feral cats (not fed on commercial food, I know that shape and size well)?
But I laughed and the crows laughed with me there at the hilltop.
Poor little tree.