Trigger's Tree

    We had some thunderstorm this morning!  It woke me around 3am and the thunder had the dogs diving under Jeff's bed!  I laid there for awhile but couldn't go gack to sleep so I finally got up and put on a pot of coffee...while the power was still on.  By 5:30am I was sitting in my chair, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of coffee and a book.(My window was open part way and while there was a chilly breeze, it smelled and felt so good I just snuggled in my blanket!)  And no dogs...they were still under Jeff's bed!  I  fell asleep in the chair around 7am and slept there until almost 10am.  I could barely walk when I finally woke up and decided I needed more coffee.  The russle of Cherrios falling into a cereal bowl brought both dogs into the kitchen...followed by Jeff and when he came back in after letting them out, he said the top of one of the evergreen trees close to the house broke during the storm.  I went out to see which one it was.  It was Trigger's Tree.

   Trigger was our neightbor's Shetland Pony.  This was 1962 and I always thought he was old but maybe not, maybe just gentle.  He had 2 large pastures...one across from our house and the other between our house and the neighbor's garage.  In the summer he was also staked out in the field across from our garage.  As Trigger got older he was allowed to roam around the lawn with just a rope hanging, clipped to his halter.  He stayed away from the road and didn't go into the woods.  

   My younger cousins loved to come up and 'ride the horse'.  An adult would put a kid up on Trigger's back and lead the pony around the property. They talk about it still! I don't remember anyone getting hurt or being afraid of Trigger.

   The spring after we moved here my father got a dozen or so pine trees thru Cooperative Extension and planted them around the property, including two he put along the driveway between the house and the gargage.  They all grew taller than the house except one.  Meanwhile, Trigger was free to roam and he would come up to our house everyday and stratch himself on that one little pine tree.  My father had to stake it to keep Trigger from knocking it over!  That tree barely stayed alive and never grew while Trigger used it as a stratching post but once he died it took off and ended up taller than the house!  

   In the last few years the tree has started to lose branches and Jeff has had to trim off the dead wood.  If losing the top of the tree kills it, it's going to be interesting taking it down.  The house and garage form an L around it and the electrical wires run along the driveway.  Oh, the joys of home ownership!

P.S.  After Trigger died our neightbors got another Shetland pony but he didn't stay too long.  He was nothing like ol'Trigger!