Sunday Trees

Continuing the theme of trees related to home, this is a very special tree.  It is an ancient swamp willow. Originally it had five huge limbs, each about 1 metre in diametre.  A severe storm brought down one of the limbs, frightening my parents into having them all lopped back. 

This photograph would have been taken in the late 1960s, and shows the tree-fort construction of my brother.

Swamp willow, Toronto Canada, c 1968

In the right background you can just make out the 'play house' my father built for my brother and me.  It was more elegantly constructed than the tree-fort (my brother was for all things military), fashioned from sheets of 4x8 plywood, with left over asphalt roof tiles.  The front door knob was a large wooden thread spool, and it had two hinged windows you could prop open, one at the side and one at the back.  We built a little reclaimed brick terrace to the right of the house which nestled under an ancient and generous damson plum tree.

In a complete departure, I offer you an earlier structure:

Isabel & brother, c 1964