I don’t mean this in a morbid way, but I am beginning to be old, and I acknowledge it; it is nothing to be ashamed of or hide from. I’m getting good at it.

I’m proud of myself for living this long and for trying to learn something new every day.

I love my new Toyota Rav 4 so much I bought it two weeks ago; I leased it in 2020. I wondered as I bought it if it might be my last car. I thought the same thing when I got Zinnia and after Red died. Would this be my last dog?

The answer is probably no in both cases, but still…I think about it, and I thought about it today. On the way back from one of our two nighters in Vermont, we stopped and bought an apple tree for $70.

This is likely to be the last tree we plant, but not because of my age.

We have completed our intention to create a ring of green about our farmhouse, for our seme, and as a  legacy to leave to future inhabitants.

The trees range in age from two years to eight, but they are all shooting upward and outward and shrouding our lives in green and shade and nature.

It’s partly a farm thing; you’re supposed to surround the farmhouse with trees so that there will always be shade and beauty around the house. Others did it for us long ago, and we are returning the favor.

It’s also a Jon and Maria thing. We love planting things and watching them grow, and they are now providing us both beauty and privacy and blocking much of the noise on the road.

We don’t need to argue the reality of climate change. We want to do everything we can to help the earth. We got a compost last year, and call it Oscar, and we got some solar panels for the southern pasture; our electric bill averages to about $15 a month. And we’re helping the earth a bit.

We have planted lilacs, Maple trees, Sycamore’s, Apple, and White Birch trees, and the farmhouse is barely visible from the highway out in front.

We lost only one plant, a Magnolia we bought as a kind of rescue at the end of the summer last year. We thought we could save it, but we were too late. The new apple tree has been planted in its place.

There are now eight different gardens surrounding the farmhouse.

Maria and I know the drill. This has become an annual or even semi-annual thing.

We maneuver the young tree into my car, an SUV, and get a bag of mulch, two bags of fresh soil, sometimes Peat Moss.

We fill a big hole, fill it with water, add some soil, some manure, peat moss of indicated, then put in the tree in its rootball. I fill the hole with water and wait for it to soak in two or three different times.

We shove in more soil, up over the top of the rootball, and add a lot of mulch and then a stake. I will soak the rootball every evening for two or three months. I’m in charge of watering and maintenance; I help shovel, but Maria does most of the grunt work, my knees don’t co-operate. I do whatever I can, including hauling wheelbarrows and rushing to the hardware store for soil or much.

It was a beautiful broody, windy and gloomy day up here today as we blessed the apple tree, welcomed it, and planted it carefully.

Planting a tree is the most wonderful feeling every single time. Seeing them grow and repay us with their shade and color, and dignity is one of the treasures of living where we live and our deep connections as partners in this life.

I am aware that I never once planted anything until I bought a cabin up on a mountain 20 years ago, and began my life in the country. Even though I did my first gardening at the cabin, I never planted a tree.

We are different people, Maria and I but we love doing so many of the same things. Did marriage change us or remind us that connection comes from the heart and soul, from the inside, not the outside.

Talking this weekend, we both agreed that the fact that we had such strong and separate interests – and some shared ones – was what made our relationship work. We share our lives, but very much remain ourselves.

Neither one of us has any interest in dominating or controlling the other. That seems important, I think of it every time we plant a tree.