Our trees are sporting a green “5 o’clock shadow.”  They are beginning to bud!  Winter is about over.  I for one, am very enthusiastic about this!

The Red Bud Trees are in full bloom, too.

I have a fondness for Red Bud Trees.  Even as a little girl, I was curious as to why they were called Red Bud Trees instead of Purple Bud Trees.  Their buds are purple, not red.  Oh well…that is a completely different topic.

When I was little, I had a swing set.  I loved to swing as high as I could go.  Back and forth and back and forth.  Great times on that squeaky, metal  swing set.  It was underneath a very large Red Bud Tree.  The tree was enormous!

I was fascinated by this tree because of the tree’s bark.  It looked like puzzle pieces to me.  I would chip of small pieces of the bark and try to put the pieces together, just like you do a puzzle.  It never worked.

The Red Bud Tree was flush up against one side of the swing set.  The swing set was an A frame construction with a metal bar connecting the two sides of the A (I know, clear as mud).  I liked to twirl on this connecting bar.  My mother was not overjoyed when I did this and I usually “caught it” when I did it.

Being the clever little girl that I was, I decided one day to STAND on this connecting bar.  My mom could not see me so she would never know.  Right?

Wrong.

I stood on the bar and promptly fell.  I fell face first into the trunk of the tree.  Scraped up my face something fierce.  Of course I cried and went running into the house.  If I recall, my mother was none to sympathetic to my plight.  I think I got a lecture to the effects of, “How many time do I have to tell you NOT to do that!?!”

Busted.

I was never able to quit chipping little pieces of bark off the tree, though.   🙂

Last time I was back in the town where I was a little girl, MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I drove by the old house.  The big Red Bud Tree had been cut down.  I was sad.  I had a great deal of happy memories about that tree.

Here is to swing sets and Red Bud Trees~ and to the lovely sight for sore eyes of the green 5 o’clock shadows on the trees in our neighborhood!