{"id":1594,"date":"2012-06-04T13:19:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T17:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/?p=1594"},"modified":"2012-06-16T11:26:06","modified_gmt":"2012-06-16T15:26:06","slug":"the-troublesome-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/?p=1594","title":{"rendered":"The Troublesome Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The messy, beautiful tree in our back yard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a tree in our back yard that makes a mess. \u00a0It covers our deck and fills our pool with gooey dead blooms. \u00a0It drops little bitty leaves like confetti, and occasionally lets go of entire dead branches. \u00a0It grows super fast, sticking its branches in unwanted places, like into the side of my house, above the chimney, or right over the pool. \u00a0It causes so much shade in places that it nearly kills the grass.<\/p>\n

It is a troublesome tree. \u00a0I have to trim it back every year, yet I still tolerate it. \u00a0I tolerate it because I love it. \u00a0I planted it when it was just a baby. \u00a0I have watched it grow into a giant shade tree that makes a wonderful cool shade in the hot summer. \u00a0Its blooms provide a colorful splash of pink against the sky, drawing hummingbirds to the big dinner table above the rooftops. \u00a0Below it is my wife’s garden bench, a place to sit and rest a while. \u00a0A swing hangs from one of it’s large branches. \u00a0I love the tree, despite it’s faults.<\/p>\n

Except for one who walked this earth over 2000 years ago, nothing in life is perfect. \u00a0Not a tree, not a person, not a church. \u00a0Too often I concentrate on the faults and problems and ignore the beauty in life. \u00a0I could cut the tree down and save myself some mess and trouble. \u00a0I could move to a place where there are no trees. \u00a0I could spend my life trying to rid myself of anything that causes me pain. \u00a0But I would miss a place to hang my swing. \u00a0And the beauty of the tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a tree in our back yard that makes a mess. \u00a0It covers our deck and fills our pool with gooey dead blooms. \u00a0It drops little bitty leaves like confetti, and occasionally lets go of entire dead branches. \u00a0It grows super fast, sticking its branches in unwanted places, like into the side of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[219,220,221,14,96],"class_list":["post-1594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consider","category-misc","tag-grace","tag-imperfection","tag-others","tag-trees","tag-understanding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1594"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}