The Tree's Memorial

Beware: This post reveals my inner-tree-hugger.

Springtime in Bloomington is gorgeous. It has to be, thus far, the most beautiful place that I have been during spring. It is, after all, called "Blooming"-ton for a reason. All the trees bloom. White, yellow, pink, purple, and even a light green.

On my walks to work in the morning, I get to see all shades of these colors as they appear in the dawning light of the sun. They are spectacular.

As I got to campus this morning, I walked by a new chain-link fence that had been set up to block students from walking through a construction zone. The fence, set up a couple of weeks ago, has forced me to divert my path, as I used to stroll across a bridge and walk along a stream to get to the next street. As I would walk across the bridge, I could sometimes catch a glimpse of the muskrat that lived in the stream. One day, as you can recall from a past blog, the muskrat was carrying an apple the size of his head back to his nest. The apple came from a tree that was right next to the stream.

Last spring, the apple tree was gorgeous. It has the most beautiful white blossoms all over it. When they fell from the tree, the petals carried on the breeze like snowflakes.

This morning, as I was walking past the fence, I could hear machinery. When I climbed the stairs next to the fence so I could see above it, I saw what had become of the apple tree.

The tree is now a pile of tangled branches and broken trunk, covered in a layer of construction dust.

Despite my understanding that with the new apartments they are building on campus, they will need more parking, I was still fairly upset over the loss of what I had come to think of as "Mr. Muskrat's Apple Tree." All I could think about was the fact that I would not see the tree in bloom this year. It should have been peaking right about now.

So, here is to you, Mr. Muskrat's Tree. You will not be forgotten. You have been preserved in both my own memory and in the pictures I had taken in the past of the doe and her 2 fawns lounging under your boughs.