The Lydia Tree

This is the Lydia Tree. It came home in my hatchback from the Briar Patch the day my daughter started into labour. I knew I was only going to have one grandchild so I put a lot of thought into choosing the tree.
We knew the baby was going to be a girl, so I wanted a tree with feminine energy. A good friend of mine had suggested a Mountain Ash or a birch, but I already had them in abundance around the yard.
So the choice narrowed down to a weeping willow that both I and my neighbours would be able to enjoy.
In keeping with the traditions of our people, the placenta is buried under the tree. We had arranged this beforehand with my daughter's obstetrician and it was included in her birth plan. If you are planning on doing this yourself, you'll be pleased to know that while it wasn't an everyday occurrence at the hospital, but we certainly weren't the first to make this request.
The Lydia tree certainly wouldn't fit in the hatchback now. I haven't measured it, by by my best estimate its at least ten, perhaps even twelve feet tall. Because its such a special tree, it was also given an extra boost with a rich mixture of good compost, ground potatoes for extra nitrogen and for good measure its located on one of the many natural springs on my land.
Actually before I bought the land, I had an old well driller witch the property to make sure that there would be water. Water! He found three strong veins of water and pointed out three more surface springs for good measure.
In fact, the bottom piece was so wet that everyone else had been put off. So why did I want it? Besides the fact that the price was right? It already had a tractor road in ... which really saved both on the cost of putting in a driveway and in not having to put in a culvert. I had gone land shopping on my bicycle, so I knew that I'd be within walking and biking distance of the village. Best of all, the land had been vacant for years so it was as close to chemical free as I was likely to find.
I moved my mini home out there in the fall of 93. The following spring, I had an excavator in to dig what I call the upper pond. It has three natural springs, is just over 60 feet long and in the centre is well over ten feet deep. Twelve years later it is well naturalized and new visitors can't imagine it hasn't always been there.
Instead of having the fill from the pond trucked away, I hired a guy with a dozer to sculpt the front yard. Why did I go to all this trouble? The pond acts as natural drainage for the lower end of the yard and makes the entire yard usable. Without it, I wouldn't be able to put a tiller in the garden until august
Everyone who grew up around here remembered playing hockey on the lower pond. When I bought the land, the owner had already brought in his own excavator and opened up the bottom end of the pond in the hopes of draining the land. The year after I had the upper pond started, I had a guy with a backhoe close the lower pond back in. Nobody plays hockey anymore, but I've lost track of how many folks have mentioned how glad they are to see it back.
That almost makes up for still being referred to, after sixteen years, as the new girl who bought Ralph Whynott's old cow pasture: ))))