Journal - 1

Back in the day, when your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather's uncle John was a youngin', his father told him a story of when the trees were young and were only a few years past sprouting. The leaves on the trees were the most brilliant color of green and they stood out tall and proud among all of the other plants and grasses that grew native to the country. The leaves on the trees were so young and brilliant, they stayed a blazing green color all year round. They never grew tired, the trees were proud of their colors and they kept growing bigger and stronger every day.

There was one tree that stood taller and broader than the rest. This tree was known as "The Great Tree". This tree was teeming with animals and creatures that congregated in and around the tree for fellowship. Every evening the animals of the field, the birds of the sky, and the beasts of the forest would congregate around the tree to meet together and discuss their progress of that day and the upcoming tasks of the following day.

The old and wise owl was the leader of the meetings. He was voted in as their leader, because he was, after all, the oldest and the wisest. Owl started off the meeting by asking for reports on every one's progress that day. The rabbits told him they had collected two big piles of edible leaves and berries- enough to last them for three days. The moles reported that they had made a new mile of tunnels in unmarked territory to the East, and they think that the land is safe for exploration. The coyotes said they were patrolling the territory lines all day and had warded off three intruders, but were careful not to hurt them. All of the other animals made their reports to the owl, and the owl was pleased. But then the owl noticed that the group of squirrels had not yet reported to the owl.

The owl demanded of them, "Squirrels, how have you been productive today?" All of the other animals grew silent as the three squirrels trembled with fear. The smallest squirrel cuddled his red tail around his body as he boldly proclaimed, "Today we collected nuts." The owl looked at the squirrels questioningly for some time before he answered, "How many nuts were collected, young squirrels?" The smallest squirrel started stammering in his reply, and finally whispered, "we ate them all, sir."

"As you know", replied the owl. "To be part of our family, you must put in your share of work, just as all of the other animals have done today. I will give you one more day to make up for today's blunder. At this time tomorrow, I will decide if you may stay with us any longer or not. But be sure that you do not collect all of your nuts from the same tree, as I have told you before." And with that the owl ended the meeting by assigning work to all of the other animals for the following day.

The next day, all of the animals rose with the sun and began performing their duties. The birds collected twigs for fires, as the large hawks patrolled the territory from above, and the eagles along with the cougars scoured the unknown territory to the East. The beavers were working hard on making a bathing hole for the animals, as the raccoons and badgers were catching fish for the group dinner in the evening. All of the animals on the territory were hard at work, except the squirrels. Nobody else knew it, but the squirrels were in the great tree gorging themselves with acorns. They were making a small pile of acorns to collect, but for every acorn they put in the pile, they ate another one. The squirrels were too lazy to spend the day collecting from many trees, so instead they only collected acorns form the great tree. In doing this, they directly disobeyed the owl, which was their authority.

When the group meeting came together in the evening, the owl saw the small stack of nuts the squirrels had collected and saw how sluggish and gorged they were, and decided to ask them to leave the group. After the squirrels left, everyone else was very hard working and they had a great system going. The squirrels, however, did not leave the land for good. They snuck back in and slept in the great tree. They spent the rest of the summer eating the acorns only from the great tree and lived in its limbs every day. This caused the great tree much stress. By the end of the summer the tree had no acorns left. this caused the tree to lose its pride. Because of the lazy squirrels that had disobeyed, the tree was no longer proud and strong. The tree became sad and slowly its leaves started turning dismal colors and eventually all of the leaves fell off of the tree. The great tree is still depressed, to this day, and because of how strong and mighty the great tree was, every year all of the other leaves get sad in remembrance of the great tree and change the colors of their leaves and drop their leaves. We have come to call this season of the trees fall.