My Tree - The Twelfth Picture

10am, December 5th.  Bright sunshine, weather cold... and still recognisably My Tree.

Over the weekend I shall make a grand collage of all the pictures. 

What next?

Should I continue with this tree or spend December looking for one to 'adopt' for 2026? This one has worked so well in terms of location

What do you think?

My Tree In November

A Day In Autumn

It will not always be like this,

The air windless, 

A few last leaves 

Adding their decoration to the trees’ shoulders, 

braiding the cuffs of the boughs with gold; 

A bird preening in the lawn’s mirror. 

Having looked up from the day’s chores, 

pause a minute, and

Let the mind take its photograph

Of the bright scene, 

- Something to wear against the heart in the long cold.

Ronald Stuart Thomas 

The Tenth Tree Picture

Can you believe it - 10 out of 12 pictures have been taken. A few leaves are yellowing, there are definite signs of autumn in the foliage around the field. 

It was a much greyer day yesterday morning

Here is the first photo from the beginning of January 2025. Sometime in the next 12 weeks, all those green leaves will fade and fall and My Tree will look bare again.

But the basic shape of the tree and its branches has remained constant. Each month it has been beautiful in a different way...

 

Tree Picture Number Eight

It was grey and damp on Friday when I drove into Dereham for my Volunteering session at the Hospital. But I stopped to take a picture of the tree. The crop has been harvested, so you can see the base of the trunk, and the bare area around it. But the foliage remains lush dark green. I've arranged the 8 pictures anticlockwise, starting at the top left with January so you can see how the leaves have developed.

Four months bare branches, four in leaf. I am loving this project!

So Much Greener!

Not much difference in size over the past 4 weeks- but look how much lusher and greener the foliage is! And the blossom on the crop below has finished, and that too is getting greener.
I think the trees [and the crops] have benefitted from the slightly cooler days and showers of rain that June has blessed us with.
My Raised Bed is definitely coming along fast, with lots of lush foliage [but my second crop of radishes seems to have disappeared]

 

My Tree - May Tree

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –     
When weeds, in wheels,
shoot long and lovely and lush;         

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
   Most, O maid’s child,
thy choice and worthy the winning.      
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness;
the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         
What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,        
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, 
   Most, O maid’s child,
thy choice and worthy the winning.      

And suddenly, there are leaves, and blossoms
[and Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem!]

Branch Lines

Here's the February picture of MyTree2025, this time taken on a gloomy February afternoon, not a sunny January morning. I like the starkness of the black branches silhouetted against the sky. But there does not seem to be much change in the tree itself, although I note that the crop in the field around it is coming along slowly. The plants are thicker and greener than a month ago.

I have taken to calling cheerily "Hello Tree!" whenever I drive past.