(Excerpt from our book, Tales from Heritage Farm,  available in our store)

The Lilac plants shot up quickly.  They endured the winds and weather on their own.  They grew, bloomed, and looked beautiful.  They became confident that the “little woody folk” would never pass them up in height or in strength.  Not many folks noticed Woody and his kind for several years.

The Lilac family had been highly esteemed in those early years for their beauty and service.  Friends and neighbors in their buggies and heavy laden wagons clip-clopped past the fragrant grove each spring enjoying its perfume on the their various trips to town and to the school house next door.  Sleighs piled high with supplies and the township’s children were blessed by the breaking of the wind on snowy winter days.

But now it was Lilac’s turn to go unnoticed.  Long ago, the buggy and sleigh traffic became outdated by the automobile.  Speed was a new development in the countryside.  Cars required wider curves to negotiate the turns at high speeds.  Soon the old country road was rerouted into a neighboring cornfield.

The Lilac’s purpose in helping break the wind for the farm was still in tact, but fewer eyes noticed the flowers’ beauty. The blossoms had decreased in number each year.  More recently, the verdant bushes were only to function as wind and snow breaks.  Their branches had been overtaken gradually by Woody and his flat-needled kin.

The Cedars grew to be at least three times the height of the Lilacs.  Their branches spread a constant canopy of shade over them.  The lack of direct sunlight caused the Lilac folk to cease blooming altogether.  Their pleasant fragrance to Farmer and his family was no longer shed.  Lilac fretted about the fact that each spring in mid- to late- May, she knew she should be sprouting forth blossoms.  She was haunted by the question, “How could her children ever reach their potential and carry out the mission for which they had been created?”

photo credit: starmist1 via photopin cc