Congratulations to Jackie Ollivier on winning the 2024 Project Forest Tree Story Contest. We love this sweet story that reminds us that sometimes kids really do know best! Thank you, Jackie, for sharing your story with us.
Two summers ago, I planted a young apple tree in our front yard. Fast forward a year, and that little tree, no thicker than my daughter, had somehow managed to grow four of the most perfect apples I’d ever seen. Each one hanging there, looking like they’d been plucked right out of an orchard catalog.
One afternoon, while we were outside playing, my daughter asked, “Can we pick the apples now?”
I put on my wise, all-knowing parent voice and said, “Not just yet. Let’s wait one more day, just to be safe.” She wasn’t thrilled about this decision, but she nodded, looking longingly at those rosy-red apples.
The next morning, as we stepped outside to head to school, I instinctively looked over at our little apple tree—and froze. Where the apple tree had once proudly stood, there was now just a lonely little stub. Overnight, a neighborhood deer had stopped by and enjoyed a midnight feast. The tree had been eaten down to almost nothing!
I stood there, feeling a mix of disbelief and regret. If only I’d listened to my daughter, we could have at least enjoyed those four apples ourselves. We’ve planted a new tree in its place—a testament to perseverance, and a reminder that sometimes, just sometimes, kids really do know best. The funniest thing is, I told my husband about it and sent him a picture of the stub and he replied with a picture of the deer eating the tree! He had left for work very early in the morning and the deer was just finishing up his snack!
–Jackie Ollivier