National Arbor Day was Friday. It is a day that passes unnoticed by most people, I would guess. I would hate to speculate how many people do not even know what the word ‘arbor’ means. Would more people pay attention if we called it National Tree Day? Trees are important for many reasons, but their most fundamental process is to take CO2 (carbon dioxide) out of the air for use and storage and to release O2 (oxygen) back into the air—for us to breathe. That alone should have us hugging trees, planting trees, and celebrating trees every day, with every breath we take. They are literally life to us.
Trees have been the lifeblood for Chris for forty-five years now—daily interactions that go far beyond the benevolent exchange of gases. They are a part of our family—they are grown, planted, cared for, protected, and loved. Four years ago I wrote about watching/helping him plant a tree, and I thought I would share part of that post:
My dear husband Chris has been planting trees for over forty years–this flowering dogwood in front of the Odessa First United Methodist Church is just one of thousands that are the legacy of his hands and spade.
Watching him plant a large tree is a study in precision and ease and of sweat and dirt. He places the tree, then cuts a circle around it with his sharp spade. He moves the tree aside and expertly skims the sod from the circle. His foot steps the spade into the soil with a satisfying sound, and he lays that spadeful neatly beside the hole. He continues to step, lift, step, lift, step, lift–making it look easy, even as the sweat starts rolling off his face and arms. A sharp clunking sound and a jarring vibration in his hands indicate a rock, and with additional finesse and muscle, he removes it from the neat, straight-sided hole. With the handle of his spade, he measures the correct depth so the tree is not planted too deeply or too high. The width is one and a half times the diameter of the root ball. He gently rolls the tree into the hole, cuts the twine and unpins the burlap from the root ball, kneeling in the dirt he just overturned. By now his shirt is wet with sweat, and his cap and belt are dark-stained with the salty moisture. The tree is in its place, and with a vertical, cutting motion with the spade, he tamps the soil into the hole to anchor the roots in their new home. His ‘helper’ (me) turns on the water hose and trickles water as he tamps, and soon the hole is filled with dirt and water. The sod is chunked into strips and lined around the hole, and the bermed crater is soaked with a slow stream of water.
Chris has planted trees of every kind and size in four states, has grown them from seed, has pruned them, watered them, moved them, cared for them, and reluctantly cut them down. He has planted trees to memorialize people who have died and to celebrate people who are alive. He’s a tree man through and through.
So Arbor Day for us is like ‘Eat Some Healthy Food Day’ or ‘Take a Deep Breath Day’—we do it every day with little thought and with much thought. Trees are such an important, integral part of our lives—they sustain us at the most basic level of biology and at the highest stratum of spirit. And they do that for all of us, even when we are not aware.
We wander our woods and yard with excitement each Spring, noticing each tree, examining them for rabbit, deer, or winter wind damage. Some don’t make it through the winter (or the drought or whatever the challenge), but healthy color and expectant buds of new growth are signs that all is well. Others rally from the damage with Spring rains and warm temperatures, and they carry the scars through the rest of their lives. As I walked our yard this Arbor Day, I wondered how many trees Chris has planted on our one plus acre in our eleven years here. I stopped counting at one hundred. That was without counting most of the small Oaks that he grew from seed or most of the shrubs that are just starting to get their leaves or any of the trees on the wooded hillside. Here are just a few:
I know I’m kind of preaching to the choir—anyone who reads my blog already appreciates trees and all the other amazing flora and fauna of Nature. But at this time on our planet, this becomes more than a matter of appreciation. Planting trees is one of the most effective ways in which we can stave off the detrimental effects of climate change. The Nature Conservancy has pledged to plant one billion trees, and Microsoft will match your donation up to $50,000. The Arbor Day Foundation has a new ‘The Time for Trees Initiative’ to plant 100 million trees by 2022. If you sign up to support The Arbor Day Foundation, you will receive ten free trees to plant on your own. Few people can make the personal difference of actually growing and planting many thousands of trees like Chris has, but all of us can make a difference by being aware of the importance of trees, by donating to organizations that plant trees, and by planting and caring for more trees in our own lives. It truly does affect the most basic level of our biology and the highest stratum of our spirits.
