Miracle of Maple Tree Recover!

I planted three maple trees by the side of our North Fork mountain cabin front gate in 2005.

North Fork is a beautiful mountain forest, but most of them are evergreen pine trees, so I wanted my husband to feel his home of Quebec and my home country of Japan to see the leaves change color to red.

One of them got severely injured almost four years ago (March 2013) by a car backing up the tree and breaking the main trunk. 

Nobody thought this tree (she) would make it, but I thought I could help her.

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Photo: Wounded maple tree trunk with a little remedy glue that I made. Sorry for the out-of-focus.

I made a special remedy glue with soft-cooked brown rice and barley to mend her. 

This idea came from an old traditional story of “Shitakiri Suzume” (translated literally into “Tongue-Cut Sparrow“, is one of Japanese fairy tale – a kind old man, his mean wife and an injured sparrow story. One day, when sparrow ate glue (made with rice) , the wife got upset and cut tongue of sparrow…

Most people could not believe the glue that I made with grains would help this maple tree recover, but I knew she would; miracles can happen and guess what?….she came back!

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Photo: The maple tree with remedy glue of soft-cooked brown rice and barley that I made for her.

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Photo: Special remedy glue was made in my suribachi (earthenware mortar).

Because of drought, many trees did not survive the last few years, and two other maple trees I planted did not make it either — but the one I helped to mend survived! Can you believe?
She started to show beautiful autumn colors from the following year even more beautiful than before.

Many of our North Fork friends told us how beautiful she became, but she showed the red leaves before Thanksgiving week so we didn’t see her color because we usually visited North Fork on Thanksgiving week after labor day weekend.

I finally saw her beautiful autumn color when I went back to Vipassana 10 days meditation in North Fork two years ago (2014) before Thanksgiving week.

She was so beautiful and made me feel so happy.

I took the photo below with her to show Eric.

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Photo:The maple tree was getting better to show red leaves in 2014.

This year, our friend of Noth Fork told us how beautiful the maple tree showing her red leave’s color again so I talked to her  before Thanksgiving week and asked her if she could keep the red leaves for us to see, especially for Eric since he never saw her with red leaves.  She said she will do her best and she kept her promise for us so Eric and I were able to see these beautiful leaves for the first time on Thanksgiving weekend together.

I feel the tree is thanking us by showing her beautiful color every year because I helped her to come back. I named her “Thank you (Arigatou) Maple Tree”.

Everything is a miracle when you believe it and not give up before the miracle happens.

I took the bandage out for her and express my gratitude to “Thank you (Arigatou), Maple tree”.

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Photo: The maple tree’s wound is all healed so we took the bandage out this year 2016.

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Photo: The maple tree is showing most beautiful leaves this year in 2016.

This is 2016 photo of miracle arigatou (thank you) maple photo.

with my love,

Sanae 💖