On My Front Lawn

Finally got my pecan tree

When my house was being built last year. I snuck to the build site, late one night after the land was leveled and while the grass sod was still on the pallets. I went to the middle of the yard and dug me a hole and dropped 5 pecans into the hole. Then I covered the pecans and left for home. I showed up the next day to approve of my tree scheme, when I saw that not only did they lay the grass already, but the home builders also planted me a free tree. In the middle of the yard. Very close to where I planted the pecans.

That following summer, was the drought of 2011, here in Texas. I never saw the pecans sprout. So all year, I have assumed the pecans were destroyed in the dig of the tree. The drought caught the live oak off guard and left the little tree looking dead. Not a leaf anywhere, and all of the branches brittle. This was a lose lose.

Now for the story behind the pecan tree.

My father’s father had property in west Houston. On his property were approximately 5 pecan trees, that my grandmother had planted on my grandfather’s property. Years after my grandmother was no longer around, my grandfather was left to take care of these trees. and he did. His pecan trees grew to about 30 feet high and about 30 feet wide, from branch tip to branch tip. Years later I was born. One day while my mother and I were visiting my dad’s dad, I must have been 9-12 years old, I loaded a couple 5 gallon buckets with pecans.I had a plan to run out in the woods to the place my friends and I had a tree fort, and plant a bunch of pecans. I did. (the following year a Golf Course popped up in that same spot). A week went by and I still had lots and lots of pecans left. My mother decided to take the pecans and make a layer on the bottom of each of her flower pots and then refill the dirt and replant the plants that used to be in the pots. Time passed, and my mother noticed little trees growing in some of her flower pots. My mother uprooted a few and threw them away and then realized they were pecan trees starting to grow. So my mother planted a few pecan trees in her yard. 25 years passed and I see that these pecan trees are beautiful. I decide I am going to buy me a house somewhere and plant some of the pecans in my yard. So I started looking for a place to move to. Hurricane Ike came, and wiped out the pecan trees from the yard.( I missed a few weeks of work and my funds were tapped.) No damage to the house at all. but the pecan trees, totaled and their yearly crop of pecans, about 5-6 blocks away and all over the place.

The year before was a bad harvest. The pecans were all rotted with only a few good. So it was a bummed out year. Those pecans sat in a bucket in the dining room for the next following year. Until my brother’s son decided to play with the pecans. He scattered them all over the dining room and stomped the majority of the pecans into the carpet. We cleaned up what we could and saved a few. Maybe 100 or so. A couple months go by and I get a deal on a brand new house.

One year later I was out mowing my yard, and look what I found On My Front Lawn.

If you look close enough, I have mowed over this tree once.

*And now an update*