Every year around Arbor Day, I like to plant a tree. Last year it was a Colorado Blue Spruce that I planted where one had died in our wind break. (The rabbits chewed it up good this winter.) The year before, it was a Weeping Willow. Where I bought it, they had it marked as a Red Maple. When I got it home, and discovered it was a Weeping Willow, I was a little perturbed, but then thought, “Weeping Willows are cool.” So no tears shed. Get it?

The year before that, it was a Flowering Peach. The year before that, it was a Chinese Crabapple, and the year before that a Weeping Cherry. Interspersed in there have been Burning Bush, Lilacs, Roses, Hydrangea and a Yellow Trumpet Vine, scavenged from our neighbor up the road. Along with the trees already on the Empty Nest Farm, like Silver Maple, Catalpa, Pin Oak, Colorado Blue Spruce, Mulberry, and Birch, I figure that by planting a tree every year, by the time Ginnie and I pass our two-and-a-half acres along to our kids, it will be a veritable Arboretum.

Being from Missouri, Ginnie’s favorite tree is the Pink Dogwood, which Missouri has an abundance of. They don’t do too well this far north due to the climate and wind.

When we were at the new Dutchman’s Store in Cantril, amongst the trees they had for sale, were the Pink and White Dogwood. I have never seen Dogwoods for sale before in Iowa. I suppose, Dutchman’s being on the Iowa-Missouri Border, it makes sense that they would have them. BTW: If you haven’t been to the new Dutchman’s Store, it’s a must see. We had lunch there also in their restaurant (food sold by weight). Ginnie and I looked at the Dogwoods, but Ginnie ruled they don’t have the protection from the wind they need here in Iowa. However, as we were checking out, I made a snap decision and ran out, grabbed a Pink Dogwood, and put it in the cart. If my lady wants a Dogwood, by golly she’s

gonna have a Dogwood. “But where will we put it?” she wanted to know. “It’s way too windy on the Empty Nest Farm.”

“I have an idea,” I told her. “There’s another tree missing from our windbreak. I think the Dogwood will have the protection it needs there from the wind.” And that’s where I put it. So far, it’s doing well, and blooming, even in some fierce wind. Ginnie is so excited!

We did lose one tree over the winter, a Georgia Peach. Why? I dunno. It was a pretty mild winter. (I didn’t even have to use the tractor to plow our driveway.) I’m thinking that the problem was that it was a “Georgia” Peach. If I had planted something more suited to the Midwest, like a White Peach, we would’ve had peaches this year.

But our McIntosh Apple tree is full of blooms, and promising to have another bumper crop, like last year. We had so many apples. Ginnie made and canned apple pie filling. Lord have mercy! I don’t know how many people picked from that tree, but there was plenty to go around. Two years ago, the apple tree didn’t bloom, and there were no apples. Even apple trees have to take a break once-in-a-while, or, like a horse in alfalfa, they’ll founder.

Ginnie’s already made a rhubarb-strawberry pie from our rhubarb. And I notice the asparagus is popping its luscious green stalks out of the black Iowa soil, like a cobra doing its eerie dance. This spring has been funky, but I see lots of promise for cornucopia abundance.

The aronia bushes are full of blooms. Once again we’ll be offering people all the aronia berries they can pick, that is if I can keep the Japanese Beatles at bay. If you don’t know what aronia berries are, they may be the most potent health berry on the planet. We had lots of takers last year.

I burned the garden off, and will be planting Blue Lake green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, Indian corn, pumpkins, onions, radishes, lettuce (Romaine and leafy) and something new. Each year I like to plant something I’ve never raised before. Last year it was bird’s nest gourds, the year before that it was sunflowers, the year before that it was okra.

Don’t know what it’ll be this year, and probably won’t until I go to buy seed. (Part of the fun.)

We have the Dogwood planted right where we’ll see it when we pull in the driveway. Ginnie’s mind can take her back to when she was a little girl in Missouri, the oldest of seven children, never knowing she’d love life in Iowa.

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Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.