“Mom it looks like Dad is cutting down a tree in the back yard,” chimed the voice of one of Dad’s children.  The speaker was peering out the window over the back yard of her home.  

The tree Dad was cutting down was a mulberry tree.  Mulberry  comes in two genders like people. Unlike most other trees, there is a separate tree of each gender.  The female tree produces blossoms that need to be fertilized from a separate source.  That source is a male mulberry tree aided by the wind or pollen-hunting insects. In early summer the female tree produces large sweet, juicy berries.   

The yard was a pretty sight, laid out in three tiers one behind the other.  A mature maple tree occupied the front tier, and provided a welcome shady area in the yard.  A large branch grew on one side of the tree, extending upward from a point some ten feet above the ground, forming a crotch wherein leaves gathered in abundance.  Over the years of leaf collecting, a good bit of humus had formed in the crotch.  A new tree had at one time grown in this small plot of soil.  The strange thing about this new growth was that the new tree had started as a sprout on the old tree just above the crotch and had taken root in the bowl of decayed leaves.  There it was, a mother cradling her baby in her arms, protecting it from hazards on the ground. 

The front tier was bordered on one side by the garage and, along the driveway, a white picket fence with a bower-like gateway, connecting the house and the garage.  Roses grew along the fence, adding a touch of color to the scene in summer.  The neighbor’s yard, just across the driveway, displayed a pussy willow, one of the first things to bloom in spring.  Though its fuzzy little blossoms had no colorful petals to enhance their beauty, they nevertheless glowed in a beauty of their own, sporting their golden raiment of pollen that the neighbor called envy. 

A blue spruce dominated the corner of the tier opposite the rear corner of the garage.  Lilacs in a variety of colors bordered the tier between the spruce and the garage.   When they bloomed, their sweet aroma demanded that some be cut and taken indoors. 

The middle tier was basically a grassy play area, just right for badminton or croquet.  It was bounded by the garage and lilacs on one side, and by a neighbor’s wooden fence on another.  Along this fence were knee-high peonies that displayed massive multi-petaled blossoms in pink and white.  Early-blooming, brilliant yellow forsythia was prominent around the other sides of the middle tier.  It is said that a crab apple tree, suitable for climbing, stood at the side opposite the neighbor’s wooden fence.  The area was later to become a sanctuary for a wedding ceremony. 

The back-door neighbor’s fence limited the back tier that was used for a small vegetable garden and the livestock: rabbits.  Oh yes, there were originally just two rabbits. Then kids gave away several of the pair’s offspring.  One dad frequently complained that one of the gift bunnies constantly bullied his dog; drove the dog away from his favorite spot. 

Two mulberry trees grew opposite the back fence, at the edge of the tier.  One of them bore an abundance of sweet, juicy berries.  Birds, especially robins, loved to eat them, and would gorge themselves, much as people do at a Thanksgiving Day table.  

“But Mom, why is Dad cutting down our mulberry tree?” 

“He wants to keep the neighborhood peaceful,” said Mom. “I had a phone call from an unhappy woman the other day.  She demanded we do something about our birds.  I thought the birds were wild but she insisted they were our birds since we fed them.  She likes to hang her laundry outdoors and she is getting tired of hanging out white sheets and gathering in purple striped ones.”