Saturday, February 01, 2014

Retired Sheriff Trees.

Our county sheriff retired, and I had the privilege to go to his retirement dinner.  It was a fun affair, hearing what he had been up to as he went through the ranks from newbie deputy to Sheriff, stories from friends and fellow law enforcement folks, gifts, some joshing (he now has a Daisy BB gun, with a sheriff's star on the stock), to the very nice, (a shadow box with all of his badges, ribbons, and one of the last jail keys from where he worked, before the jail was moved to a separate building from the city hall.) Lots of laughter, some bittersweet moments, a couple "he did WHAT?" moments, but it was nice, all the way 'round.

So, one of the decorations on each table was a bouquet centerpiece with "junior deputy" stickers set all about on the table.  After the dinner, we were told to look under our chairs, and the one who had the junior deputy star on the bottom of the chair, was the one who could take the bouquet home.



Yes, I had the sticker.  So- this was the lovely little thing.  And my not quite complete disaster table... Ahem.  So, it remained on the table, and I didn't think anything more of it.  Husband commented once that the "sticks" were a bit much, but the table that it had been on was quite large, and it wasn't quite as overpowering as it was on our much smaller table.

One thing you have to know about my housekeeping, if something doesn't jump up and down and scream, I don't normally get to it immediately.  This is important in this story, as you will see in a moment.

I had been on the run the last couple weeks, and hadn't paid much attention to the table.  Husband doesn't mess with "my" things, such as the flowers, as I am known to make potpourri, or save things for memory books.  In this case, I wasn't, and hadn't paid any attention to it.  I sat down to breakfast at the table, and saw these very sad, BROWN roses, flopped over the side of the jar, looking highly pathetic.

I finished breakfast, picked up dishes, and the jar, and went to the sink.  

After finishing up with the dishes,  I started to pull the flowers out from the sticks, and put them in the composter...  When I realized, there were ROOTS in the flowers.  I gingerly pulled out the flowers, one by one, to see what rooted.  It was the sticks!  Every last one had taken root.  So, now I have 3 'Retired Sheriff's Trees' to plant later.  I am going to let them root a bit more, and see what happens.  I believe they are willow.  You might have to enlarge the picture some, but on the ends, there are green leaves already!


So, if all goes well, I will have a more permanent reminder of the last sheriff on my place!  

5 comments:

Cperz said...

The twigs rooted...amazing. I wouldn't of thought that twigs would propagate like that...short of maybe bamboo or willow branches. Any idea what type of branches they are?

Sharon said...

Well, how about that? Cool! Nice that you won the centerpiece! That dinner does sound like a nice time.
(My house often has to 'fend for itself'.)

stephen Hayes said...

What great reminders of this special occasion.

messymimi said...

What a happy surprise! When things take root around here, it's usually not so nice.

Inger said...

What a nice surprise, I hope they will take and grow up beautiful.