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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2281361-OLD-RED
Rated: E · Short Story · Nature · #2281361
The life of a tree as told by himself. {495 words}
Hello, my name is Old Red I am a redwood tree. I am five hundred years old today. I was planted here in this forest when I was just a seedling. I have had quite an adventure living here. Today there will be people coming to cut me down so they can make room for houses to be built. Before they come, I want to tell my story.

When I came to the forest, I was only three years old and rather small for my age. I had very few branches and often bent over when the wind blew too hard. I soon began to grow, and my branches began to bud into pinecones. At the age of one hundred I stood over three hundred feet tall and had a full treetop full of pinecones. I could look down on the ground and watch as all the creatures of the forest scurried here and there. I am the home to many animals that find food and shelter from me. I have a huge eagle's nest at the very top of my branches.

My roots provide hiding places for rabbits, insects and anything small enough to crawl inside. My trunk is active with woodpeckers who rat a tat- tat all day. Squirrels have been known to hide their nuts in me. My branches are so high from the ground that only a few can call it home. There is a family of robins who moved in just last week. There are five babies that are still eggs and a mom who sits on them all day. She often catches insects that crawl on me, like ants and caterpillars. In the five hundred years I have lived here I have been through fires, floods, broken limbs and tornados. I have been the home to hundreds of animals, felt the sun and rain in my branches, been hot, cold, tired and bent. I heard some other trees talking once saying redwoods could live to be two thousand years old. I'm only five hundred I have a long way to go.

I am quite famous as I have been in a few movies, the newspaper and on television. I have even had a national park named for me. Now here I stand waiting for someone to take me from my home. It will be sad not to stand here anymore, no more animals climbing on me, no birds singing in my branches. Down the road I see large trucks heading into the forest. Soon my home will be no more and I at the young age of five hundred will never grow up. The trucks arrive right beneath me, and I await my fate. To my surprise it is two men with a huge sign that reads 'National Redwood Forest' no logging allowed. My branches shake with excitement, my trunk glistens in the sun, the sweet rain falls down and I live to be a grand old tree.
© Copyright 2022 Penelope Moonbeam (inkydinky33 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2281361-OLD-RED