Atom Fischler paying in the leaves. |
Simply Living
December 17, 2012
The lawn between the house and the lake is brown. Even though it hasn’t rained much, the brown
color isn’t due to lack of precipitation.
Brown leaves blanket the grass, specifically sycamore leaves.
In 2006, we planted one sycamore tree in our front lawn
about halfway between the lake and the house.
We must have picked a good spot because in the past six years that tiny
sprig has grown into a towering behemoth.
My guess is that it is now about 45-feet tall and almost as broad.
Sycamores have an attractive, symmetrical shape usually with
a single trunk that sports evenly spaced branches extending parallel to the
ground. A full-grown sycamore looks like
one of those crayoned drawings of trees children do in kindergarten – a
triangular form, wide at the bottom, narrow at the top.
In Florida, sycamores are one of the earliest trees to
change color in autumn. Beginning in
late August the leaves go from green to amber to brown. However, even after they’ve turned brown, they
often stay attached to the limbs, falling down gradually over the next few
months. By the middle of December, only about
half of our sycamore tree leaves have landed on the ground. The ones that have fallen are as broad as a
man’s hand with a tough, leathery texture.
Because they are so large and heavy, sycamore leaves tend to
stay in place instead of blowing around.
That’s also true for those that land in gutters instead of on the ground. As our gutters so aptly prove, fallen
sycamore leaves do a great job of creating clogs and preventing rainwater from
flowing through downspouts. If I knew
six years ago what I know now about a sycamore tree’s characteristics, I wouldn’t
have planted one where we did.
However, now that it’s here, it’s here to stay. Ralph likes the shade it provides and as much
as I dislike the way its leaves create chores, I have to agree. Its broad canopy does an excellent job of filtering
sunlight. Its limbs provide perches for a
wide range of birds as well as a source of food for hungry sapsuckers. And when the leaves do fall to the ground,
they are pretty in an autumnal, reminds-me-of-my-northern-roots kind of way.
At some point, we’ll probably take the rake out of the
garage and put some energy into creating leafy mounds. Last year, our then 2-year-old grandson had
great fun jumping into rounded piles of sycamore leaves. Now that he’s three with a 1-year-old little
sister, I expect it to be twice as much fun.
Holiday season is just around the corner and the gifts many
children receive will be in the form of electronic gadgets and plastic toys in bright
primary colors. When I think of such
presents as I’m looking out the window at the muted tones of the brown,
leaf-littered ground, I can’t help but contrast the fun that store-bought toys provide
with the pleasures derived from one of nature’s own playthings – crisp,
crunchy, brown leaves begging to be jumped in, tossed through the air and turned
into forts. Although I received many toys
when I was a child, no board game, doll, building block or puzzle yielded the
sensory-rich memories I still have of playing in the leaves.
Sycamore leaves might blanket the lawn, clog up gutters,
drift into flowerpots and wedge themselves tightly into the corners of buildings
but they also beseech me to cast off the armor of adulthood.
“Be playful,” they beckon.
“Go outside,” they implore.
“Kick us in the air!
Crunch us beneath your feet!”
They are a visual reminder of nature’s late-season
message: You’re never too old to be
young and have fun.
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