Forgotten fruit tree

Last year a storm ripped a major branch off of a tree in the neighborhood. It fell on top of a house, and the landlord decided that cutting the entire tree down after it hit the house made more sense than ever bothering to trim the damn thing.

My best guess is that the tree was at least 100-years-old. It appeared to be the tallest in the entire neighborhood. Starlings flocked to it every fall and winter, hundreds, unrelenting, filling the evenings with song. I suspected that the tree served as a migratory waystation of sorts, and this past fall and winter none of them came back.

Nature never stops working, though.

A stunted, writhing curl of a tree sat behind it, blocked from sunlight for most of the day by its towering neighbor. I could never tell what kind of tree it was, but then again I never paid much attention to it. It barely had any leaves. I assumed it would die.

It now enjoys sunlight for most of the day. It drops so many mulberries that I cannot see the pavement below it. Squirrels, rabbits, robins, finches, wrens, crows, sparrows — they all frequent the tree now. Once-barren branches anchor an explosion of new growth. This, too, is an important tree. Always has been.

It will be devastating when the landlord cuts it down, as well. What are you supposed to do, eat the mulberries? Look at all the pests that it attracts.