The Blank Canvas
In the fall of 1989, my husband Ken was offered an assistant professorship in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We moved our family from an older house shaded by mature oaks in Fergus Falls, Minnesota to this spec house in a new development with no trees. Thinking about our four young sons, we knew that the five-acre park behind the house would be great for baseball games, the adjoining woods would be perfect for tree forts, and Stricker’s Pond just down the hill would be ideal for some hockey in the winter. However, the house looked stark and lonely, perched on a bare hill. There were some sparse clumps of recently seeded grass in back, and a freshly sodded lawn with twenty red geraniums and two young evergreen trees in front. That’s it!
When I had begun house-hunting, I had been searching in established neighborhoods with big trees. However, after seeing this house and the space for the boys, Ken said, “I’ll grow you some big trees.” However, as he realized his new job obligations, his promise to grow big trees turned into a cry, “Call someone!” I asked McKay Nursery to draw up a basic plan for some more evergreens, birch and apple trees, and some shrubs. The boys helped to plant them, but Ken was left to provide them with an inch of water each week during the summer of 1990. Bored silly, he started carrying the plan with him and learning the names, common and Latin, of each tree. By fall, he knew their names and had started to think of them as friends.
Meanwhile, our boys had prepared a three-hole golf course in the backyard and developed a mowed baseball diamond in the open park. The seeded lawn in back was thriving, for which I was grateful as it reduced the mud tracked into the house by the boys, our Airedale Abby, and the workmen finishing off the lower level of the house for my weaving studio. At the furthest corner of the back yard, Tom dug a pond for Mother’s Day and edged it with red salvias. Ken and the boys created a flagstone patio as a site for a hexagonal table built by his father Joel. The table became a fixture for all kinds of activities, both for family and neighborhood children.