He Who Plants An Oak Looks Forward To Future Ages, And Plants For Posterity.

Right at the end of August, I posted a few photos showing some tree damage that occurred up in Twin Lakes Wisconsin including a felled giant, massive, hundreds of years old Oak tree.  In poking around trying to find information about Oaks in Wisconsin, I found this DNR publication called "Every Root An Anchor: Wisconsin's Famous and Historic Trees".  I haven't gotten through much of the book just yet, but I was struck by a few quotes that they included in the preamble.  The first of which is this quote from Washington Irving in Forest Trees. 

The idea of someone planting oak trees as a person who is looking out into the future - not for themselves - but for others.  Their children.  Future generations.  That's kinda interesting.

I've planted plenty of trees on our property in Downers Grove these past few years, but NONE of them have been Oak trees.

But you know what?  We're the benefactors of someone who lived into this Washington Irving quote.  We have two pretty significant Oak trees in our backyard.  One with a tree swing that my kids are on all the time.  If someone planted these trees, they certainly couldn't have seen how it provides us with shelter and joy.  But, it does.

And it makes me wonder if I should be thinking about adding another small oak to our property?

In doing so, I wouldn't be improving the backyard for us.  I might not even be improving the yard for whomever calls our house a home. But when it gets torn down and something else gets rebuilt 100 years from now?  They'll have something majestic to enjoy.  Like we do today.