Spot the difference

Can you see the difference 7 years make? The picture of the church building at the head of the blog is not exactly the way it is now. At least once a year I've had to trim the trees on either side of the front door to keep them from completely covering the front of the church.





Now spot the difference. Inexplicably, in late spring this year, the leaves on one tree began to evidence some kind of problem. And then, almost overnight, it looked like this. Then all the leaves fell off and it was a bare skeleton standing there. The Bible talks about barren trees being cut down. This one has been. When we got back from the US, it had been completely dug up and hauled away. Now we have to see whether we should put in another one, or start over with another species of plant. In that case, the other tree may have to go, too.

By the way, we're not the only one with brown trees. We saw plenty of them in the US where the drought has hit Texas and Oklahoma especially hard. These were along the side of a parking lot in Arkansas. Maybe they're the kind of tree that water can rejuvenate, and they will recover with the winter rains and snows. If not, they're headed for the same fate as the tree by our church door.