Hi Ever since Billy started this discussion about summer and trees, I have been homesick. Thank goodness it is chilly here or the desire for homemade peach icecream would have just about killed me. My grandfathers house was in the midst of several large pecan trees in Centerville and even just two years ago, we were visiting just in time to harvest those wonderful pecans. There was also an apple tree smack in the middle of the cow's paddock. I used to jump over the fence and run as fast as I could to climb that tree, before the mean old cow would chase me down and bump me. Out by the barn was a mulberry and we gathered silk worms from it to take to school for science projects. One of the best stories I remember hearing was from my Aunt Louise, a tornado was cutting a swathe through Houston County and she could hear the winds pick up and she looked out the window to see the tornado was heading her way, coming black and greasy across the fields behind the house. She watched as it approached the house, and it lifted a large old pecan tree as if it were kindling. It stood still, holding the tree just at the back of the house. She was mesmerised, she stood there watching until she realised if it came forward she was right in its path. She started and ran to the opposite end of the house and pulled a mattress over her and her dog. Finally another shriek of wind and the sound of crashing and then the groan of wood smashing into wood, glass and metal. She told me she sobbed thinking the tornado had dropped the tree on the house, but the tornado had retraced its steps and released its hold on the huge old tree on the garden shed a mere few feet behind the house. I don't know what she did right after this happened but in her very pragamatic way, I do know how she handled it. She moved the wood stack right next to the crushed garden shed and burned that pecan for the next several winters. She was over 60 and still chopping her own wood....she also made the best fudge in Georgia. Gaila