Hey! They Survived the Freeze

This magnolia is the best of the local flowering trees. It lives in Hoytville, which is more than a four corners but less than a village. The tree, as you can see, still looked fine this morning, despite the overnight chill.

When our family moved to Kalamazoo's Winchell neighborhood in 1972, our new house had a similar tree in the yard. It looked glorious the first spring, then (as Mom told the story) it would repeat the performance every three or four years. Some of the bad years were just failures; most, though, resulted from blossoms falling victim to late frosts.

For that occasional short burst of glory she had to put up with a messy tree that prevented her lawn from growing well. Eventually she tired of that, so on a chilly afternoon we spent cut it down. The neighbor kids told us we were "ruining nature."