The maple and the well ..............

This red maple is still the only tree in my yard that has any color. You may notice that it looks more like a shrub than a tree. There is a story behind that......

In the late 1800s a family had a home in the same general area as my house. Of course, they had a well. When the house was torn down, someone had placed a large piece of metal over the well opening. When we built our house, we did not want the old well in our front yard. We had the builders remove the cover and asked them to fill the well with dirt and other debris from the construction.

The first few years we were here, the area over the well settled a bit, so we filled it in with more soil. When it appeared that there would be no further settling, we purchased two maple trees and planted them in the front yard - planting one where the well had been.

The trees grew to 10 to 12 feet and were thriving. One day I looked out the front window and the tree over the well was gone. When I went outside to investigate, I discovered the tree sitting in a hole with the top of the tree at ground level. Evidently, there was some drastic settling and the tree descended with the soil.

Surprisingly, the tree survived and continued to grow. The part that is now visable are the upper limbs of the tree. As it grew out of the hole, we filled the hole with soil. There hasn't been any more settling and it has turned out to be a rather pretty and unusual tree.