"The Broken Tree"

Earlier this summer a tree a few houses down from us was struck by lighting. I'm not sure what I expected such a tree would look like but this sure wasn't it. The tree was a point of curiosity for all of us but Alder became somewhat obsessed with it. He would talk about it often and want to tell everyone about it. I took the picture above with my phone and he knew the photo was on there so he'd often ask me to take out my phone and show people the "broken tree." He'd also want to look at it at least once every night before bed.

The tree is a couple houses down from us and right next to what he calls the "dog house." The home earned that name from Adler because it has a chain link fence that comes right up to the sidewalk and dogs that bark at passersby. Adler really loves to go look at the tree but really doesn't like the dog house, which has been a major source of tension in the little guy's life.

Just recently a developer has demolished the house that had the broken tree in its front yard. Adler has named that hose "the 'molished house" and all the activity there seems to have finally won his interest away from the broken tree. But the broken tree was definitely a big part of the latter half of our summer and early fall.