NEIGHBORHOOD TREES

There are many interesting trees in my current neighborhood--not always the majestic beauties so prevalent in my former more countrified suburb--but trees that are old, crooked, stressed, and apparently insistent on survival. Every one of them looks as though it has endured a lot, and still it keeps going. Maybe that's why I have been noticing them. 

As a person who's out of warranty, I feel like some of those trees look. Not my best look, but, dang it, I'll keep pushing through whatever I'm getting handed by luck, age, genetics, and eight decades of choosing less-than-healthy options. The result may not be pretty, but I'm still here!

I have taken a lot of photos of the trees near me, but the blog-software I use (Blogger) has become much more challenging regarding picture placement, so wrapping/tucking photos throughout written narrative is not an easy task. 

In fact, last evening I spent more than one hour trying to manipulate where I wanted the photos to appear in my Scarecrows post and finally just gave up. Some of the best scarecrows (photos thereof) do not appear for that reason. But back to trees. Not only do they serve as consumers of carbon monoxide--our human pulmonary exhaust--they also enhance our landscape to create beauty and interest. Would that all of us could be both beautiful and useful.

To close this silly observation, I am going to include one tree painting I did during an in-house art class offered by my retirement community. We were painting with acrylics (which I find challenging), using photographs of trees as inspiration and model. I was hating what was happening on my 'canvas' (as if it had nothing to do with me), when I decided to dress up the tree with imaginary color and movement. The result is this silly little painting to end my tree remarks. Perhaps for Halloween I will put on all my colorful costume jewelry and call myself 'fantasy-tree-inspired elder.'