Cherry Trees Dressed Up For Earth Day

On a day something like today around fifty years ago, I helped plant these big old trees. I can still see the barrels of water with little baby trees in them. The trees smelled like the peat moss they were shipped in. I would pull a tree out of the barrel and clip the roots the way Daddy showed me. Then Daddy and my little brother would hold the tree in its new hole while Mama, my sister and I sighted it in so the rows were nice and straight. We'd fill in the dirt, give it a bit of water and go to the next one. We three kids took turns at moving the tractor forward. I remember how I had to concentrate to keep from lurching over the furrows in the orchard which would cause the water to splash out of the barrels. But if that happened, Daddy didn't get mad. He'd just laugh and say, "Careful!" I must have been about eleven.

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