Although I am certain a nation exploding fireworks in hundreds of cities and towns all in one 48- to 72-hour period has to have some impact on the atmosphere, I don't have anything against fireworks displays. What can be totally wrong with communities of people gathering together, celebrating, and being happy?

The fireworks display I like the best, however, is the one that happens in our yard each year. Like clockwork, the catalpa tree beside our barn is always in full bloom on the Fourth of July. Each spring it is the slowest tree to leaf out on our property; visitors are always lamenting that it looks like the tree beside the barn is dead. And I tell them not to worry, if they were to come back on July 4th, they would see it in all its splendor with big fat leaves and huge white blossoms.

 We bought our place in 1993 from the estate of a gentleman who had died in his early nineties a couple years before. Harold and his wife had bought the property in the early 60s from Virginia and her husband, who used it as a summer camp in the late 40s and through the 50s. They kept a swatch on the lake and built a camp, which Virginia continued to use into her nineties, driving up from Florida each summer. Virginia stopped driving north just a couple years ago, and we heard she died a couple of weeks ago.

Not long after we bought our place, Harold's nephew, who still lived in town, invited us for good old-fashioned cocktails with Virginia to hear stories about living here. She was charming. One piece of information that she told us was that she was the one who, in 1948, planted the catalpa tree beside the barn. Sixty-one years later the little sapling is taller than the 3-story barn, which must stand at least 40 feet at its peak.

According to Wikipedia, the catalpa is native to North America in a southern and northern species. After the sticky blossoms fall, seed pods grow in long beans dangling from the branches. I do know firsthand that when it is in full bloom--even this year when the rain made the display just a little less glorious than usual--it is beautifully fragrant!

 Despite the fact that in the 16 years we've lived here our catalpa has always fulfulled its Fourth of July promise, catalpas are also known to be shortlived trees. And so this year I plan to collect a few of the seed pods and see if I can plant its successor (maybe a little farther away from the barn...) before Virginia's tree succumbs.

And if I live to be in my 90s maybe I will sit with some young couple who has just purchased this wonderful property and tell them that I planted that tree back in 2009. And then they can spend a couple decades enjoying the natural fireworks that explodes beside the barn every Fourth of July.

 Cheryl Kimball is a freelance writer and editor who lives with her husband and their small menagerie of dogs, horses, a goat and barn cats on a 90-acre tree farm in Middleton, NH. Her books include Mindful Horsemanship, Horse Wise, The Complete Horse, Horse Showing for Kids, and others. She also works parttime for the New Hampshire Farm Museum in Milton.