Autumn Maple Leaves, collage by Patricia Cummings

A saying goes like this, “A good woman gives you shade in the summer and warmth in the winter.” A tree will do the same. The Maple tree is awesome! Not only does it provide shade, firewood, and wood for fine furniture, the Maple yields sap that is boiled off to make a wonderful pancake syrup. (“Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby!”) As if that were not enough, the Maple tree yields leaves of many colors, some orange, some red, some dark red, and some yellow, and sometimes more than one color in the same leaf!

We have some ancient Maples in New England that are thick in diameter. A hardy tree, they appear to be disease-resistant. On the farm where I grew up, my Dad made a tree swing on one old Maple tree. Struck by lightening in later years, it is no longer there, just its memory. Near the porch on the front of the house, there were three very large Maple trees, home to birds, and tapped by neighbors who were collecting sap, in the spring. What beautiful, cool breezes those trees provided.

I have lived among the Joshua trees of the high desert in California, and among the Saguaro cacti of Arizona. Vegetation has its beauty in other places, but New England is home for me. So today, I salute the mighty Maple trees of New Hampshire, and share some beautiful leaves with you.

Patricia Cummings

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