Gingkos in the park

And your warriors will fight and die with honor;

they will be buried with their gallant comrades near a city of Peace.

Mighty trees, whose blaze will mark the hallowed ground,

will grow to shade the resting place,

and once each year, they will shower the fallen Heroes

with leaves of gold, to match their valiant deeds . . .

Those beautiful words above were penned by my good friend, Rachel, a wordsmith extraordinaire at lawntea.blogspot.com. She has such a way with words. And those she wrote for the gingkos makes these trees even more magnificent, casting them in an entirely new light. Thank you, Rachel!

Gingkos in the park

OK, OK, I hear ya out there...no, not more gingkos! Too bad, it's my blog and this sight is one I anticipate seeing each year. So for the next few days I am going to be featuring this year's batch of gingko photos of the five magnificent trees in the Vicksburg National Cemetery. I think this is one of the prettiest events in Vicksburg and I wish everyone could see it in person. Little bitty ol' pictures just do not do these trees justice.

Gingkos in the snow

Here are some more photos from Saturday morning, the day a light snow covered the ground of Vicksburg and, in this case, the Vicksburg National Cemetery. The cemetery is home to four of the prettiest gingko trees I have ever seen in my life. The rest of this week, I will be presenting other photos I took in the park Saturday morning. Next week, I want to show you other photos I took of the gingko trees from last week and Saturday afternoon. I can't wait to show 'em! Can you?

Gingkos in the snow

One of the most glorious experiences in my life occurred Saturday morning when I stood under the gingko trees at the Vicksburg National Cemetery and saw, heard and felt the shower of gingko leaves as they fell to earth into a bed of snow. As they fell, the gingko leaves also unleashed small amounts of snow that had collected on the leaves during the night. What a wonderful sight. The photos I present here today and on Tuesday do not even come close to showing the true beauty of this event.

I wonder what kind of lesson God wants us to learn from the gingko tree. It slowly turns it leaves completely yellow and then all at once it releases them to the ground. In a flash, one of the most beautiful sights that can be found in the world is gone. If you have any thoughts, let me hear them, please.