Palm Tree Pilgrimage

1960something ~ My first palm tree in California

If you haven't heard, I love palm trees.  Palm trees and I go way back to Dune Mear Road in Southern California in the 60's...  That was just the beginning ....

In 2003, I planted my first palm tree in Oregon.

In 2008, I had a sweet little palm tree tattooed on my foot.

Also, in 2008, we thought it would be fun to get a puppy. Coincidentally, the puppy loved palm trees. She played with my palm tree, stripped it of it's fronds, uprooted it and dragged it across the yard, not once, but 3 TIMES!  I was so traumatized by these maulings that I wrote about them
here: Puppy vs. Palmtree, here: Palmtree Massacre, and the death blow here:  Whhhhhyyyyy????? (photos of the carnage at each link).

To add insult to injury, I traveled to my hometown this same
year only to find out that the palm tree of my childhood, yes that cute one behind me in the photo, had been chopped down for fear it would fall down.  It had grown taller than any other palm tree on the block.

That same palm tree 30-40 years later ....

2008 was a very bad year for palm trees.

In 2009, It finally died.  (Not the puppy.  The Oregon palm tree.)

In 2010, I picked myself up, brushed myself off and started over with a new palm tree.  

2010 

        Fearful that it might experience a similar fate, we built a puppy-proof barricade with trellises and tomato cages.  (I'm very serious about palm tree safety)

        Not a single incident has followed in the 4 years since.  In it's protected corner, it has tripled in size.
                         
Sooooo ..... this Spring Break, we made the decision to free the palm tree - the barricade is no more.





Thankfully,  Jude's vim and vigor has regressed a few degrees as well.  She still shreds butter boxes with wild abandon and flies after a ball like a bullet, but she is no match for the palm tree now.  I am looking forward to the day Jude can appreciate lying in the shade of it's fronds ....

2014