Doomed?

Doomed? (Maybe not.) (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—A tiny sapling grows in the gutter off my garage-roof.
It’s pictured above.
I have no idea how it got there. No trees are near my house, so theoretically leaves, etc. shouldn’t accumulate in my gutters.
In two weeks a son of my Canandaigua YMCA aquacise instructor comes to landscape around my house.
I hope he brings a ladder. I have one but it’s heavy. It’s wood.
I’m also 75 years old with questionable balance. I could probably remove that sapling myself, but it would be challenging.
Working off a ladder is okay assuming I can grab it with my hands. No top step for this kid! My feet alone are unstable.
One of the Canandaigua YMCA lifeguards also does landscaping. She helps her husband, who I guess is head landscaper.
She’s not an office lady. She physically helps her husband, ripping out shrubbery and trimming trees.
I told her I needed a man with a string-trimmer and a chainsaw. I have 4.7 acres, much of it reforested. I have paths cut but trees fall across ‘em.
But she lives far south of me; so their landscaping business is too distant.
“Any suggestions?” I asked.
“****** ****’s son does landscaping,” she said.
****** **** is my aquacise instructor.
We collared ****** ****. She gave me her son’s business card.
Big trees from little trees grow. Maybe I should replant this sapling.
Years ago, when my wife and I lived up in Rochester, a Norway maple helicopter-seed germinated in our garden. We didn’t rip it out. We let it grow.
It became a sapling, and we transplanted it to West Bloomfield when we moved here — which was 30 years ago.
That sapling is now a giant tree; 15-inch trunk, maybe 40-50 feet high. I hafta mow around it, and its roots hurl me on my riding-mower.
I’m told Norway maples are intruders, a weed-tree. But it looks pretty good to me. I also have another we paid for. It’s much larger.
I’ve heard complaints about helicopter-seeds, but my mower chops ‘em into mulch.
Those maples also drop many leaves come Fall, but my mower mulches them too.
So perhaps that little sapling isn’t doomed. It may be a sugar-maple. My nearest tree is a sugar-maple, purchased by my wife’s father. He died shortly before our house was finished.
Every Fall its leaves turn red, then drop for mulching. My Norway maples aren’t as pretty.
My wife’s ashes are dispersed around that sugar-maple. She always thought highly of it since her father bought it.
So I’m not sure I wanna toss that gutter-sapling. Nearby is a giant tree that was once a sapling.
Perhaps 40 years from now, assuming that sapling survives, whoever owns my house can brag to neighbors a giant sugar-maple was once a gutter-sapling.

• For 2-3 years or more I did aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool. I dropped out for the moment so I could try dry-land balance-training at a hospital Physical-Therapy. I continue to use the pool on-my-own.