The Putnam Scoop

This afternoon was so pretty that I couldn’t just run right home after work, instead I made a quick detour at Valley Park for a walk with my new camera.

I found this tree that holds onto it’s old leaves until the spring leaves come. (I’m sorry, but I don’t remember the name of it, if you do let me know!) It reminded me of a story that my daughter “Tall One” wrote when she was in about third grade.

She was supposed to make up a myth, and after she thought for a while, she came up with this. (Her story in my words.)

A long, long time ago, there was a fox walking quietly through the woods, as foxes tend to do. Some leaves on a nearby tree saw the fox and said hello to him.

The fox, being a polite and well mannered fox, said hello back and tried to make some small talk with the leaves about the weather. He said, “It’s so cold this morning, it almost feels like it might snow!”

The leaves were intrigued. “Snow?” they asked. They’d never even heard the word, having been born in the spring. What in the world was it?

The fox explained patiently that snow was like rain, only when it got cold it turned white and drifted down slowly from the sky. If there was enough of it, it would pile up on the ground, looking soft and sparkly. It could turn everything in the forest pure white – it looked magical!

The fox said goodbye and went on his way.

Well, the leaves were so shocked! They’d never thought of the world in any way other than they had seen. They began to talk about it, swaying in the breeze and whispering messages to each other. (Did you know all the leaves talk? They do, it’s true.)

All together, the leaves decided they would try to hang onto their trees and not let go, even though it was beginning to get cold, and they felt an urge to let go and float to the ground. They tried so hard, because the fox made the snow sound so pretty.

But it was difficult to hold on so long. Some of the leaves began to turn red with the effort. Others went pale yellow, and some that were undecided went orange.

Eventually, they all gave up before the snow arrived.

But the trees know the story, and every year their leaves try again, hoping to see snow, and that is why the leaves turn colors in the fall.

Well, that’s my daughter’s story, somewhat. It might be the wrong time of year and maybe that doesn’t “belong” in a blog (pffft, anything belongs in a blog!) but there it is, because I visited a tree at Valley Park today and it asked me to tell you.

And now I have.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Children, Everything Else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.