I Like Trees

blue, green, gray, yellow, orange, red, bare ... I like them all

Oct 17, 2024

I feel at home in trees. The smell. The air, cool. The rustle in the wind and how it changes if you’re in pines, fir, maple… someday I will sit in different groves and just listen and note the sounds. A music in nature. Not as famous as waves or creeks, but just as calming. Leave your earbuds at home.

The photo above is at Mt. Diablo. The photo below at The Pinnacles. Both also feature big gray monoliths. One much older and stronger than the other.

UP UP UP

I’ve climbed quite a few trees in my lifetime but admittedly, mostly before I was in High School. I remember once going off into the woods with my friend Neil. We found this fir tree and started climbing. It felt like forever. I felt like Bilbo when the dwarves sent him up to try to find the way out (btw, I love Ents!). I just kept climbing and climbing. Pitch all over my hands. Needles down my shirt and in my shorts. I’m sure I skinned my knee, my elbows, but I don’t remember that.

At one point Neil and I were up in the tree talking. He’s like, “I heard if you go out near the edge you can just jump and then you just end up sliding down the ends of the branches and the needles down to the ground. It’s like a parachute.”

Hint: This is a bad idea. A fair amount of luck is involved.

I look out from the tree and think… this thing is dense. That could work. Could try it. So yes, we did it. We scooted our way out the branches to where they would barely support our weight. They bent a lot! Then we attempted to leap outward. Really - it was so dense you couldn’t really leap - we just kind of fell out of the tree feet first so that we slid down the robust fir’s branches. And yes… it does work when you’re a 100lb kid.

The landing was still hard. Scraped all over. We didn’t do it again.

Neil… Haven’t really thought about him in a while. Friends due to location. Neighborhood friends. We never would have been friends otherwise. Basically never talked to him after graduating high school.

Another time we went down to the “SandPit” at the Olympia Brewery’s freight yard. The SandPit was actually just a hill where they had dug out the side of it to collect the sand for a nearby golf course’s sand pits. There was a lower level with soft sand, a hard bank at mid level and then an upper level that was also soft. At the top it was kind of grassy. We liked to climb around on it and would have dirt clod fights and sometimes jump from the mid level to the bottom. It had to be at least 10’ but the landing was really soft. Your feet would shoot into the soft sand and usually end up with your knees next to your ears. If you weren’t careful you’d wack your face with your own knee.

Neil dared me that he could jump from the top. I don’t think we understood how dares work. Anyway. He did it. He climbed to the top. Went back ten steps and ran to the ledge - leap! Barely clearing the mid level rim on the way down. 20’ drop easy. I tried it too. My knees went behind my ears. I didn’t know I could squish up that much.

Neil did it a bunch of times. Not me. I stuck to mid level leaps.

Working Trees

I started working for my dad at the nursery in 3rd grade. 50 cents an hour. My first job? Water the trees in containers at the back of the nursery.

As much as I like trees it’s hard to imagine anything more boring.

Water wand, hose that gets kinks, large potted trees. Stand watering a tree for 30 seconds. Move to the next tree. 30 seconds. Next tree. 30 seconds. Oh, it was mind numbing. And there were rows and rows of apple trees, pear trees, maples, oaks, birch… it went on and on. Next tree. 30 seconds. 3rd grade. Standing. watering. I think I made $1.50 that day.

When I got older I got more interesting jobs at the nursery. Ripping out hedges, tarring the roof, replacing the glass on the greenhouse - that kind of thing. If someone bought a tree or fountain they’d call on me to get it into their truck or somehow into their car. I liked it. Made me feel tough.

During the process of clearing out the hedge there was this big old cherry tree. Dad wanted it out of there so we could put more planter boxes in and sell more stuff. I was enlisted. It looked like it would fall the wrong way though so we roped it up. Tied it as tight as we could to another tree across the yard. My job - lean on that rope as hard as I could to create strength through leverage to pull the tree toward me… yup. Tree. Toward me. Questionable decision.

Dad used the chain saw and did his usual professional like job. He knows what he’s doing. But no. The tree’s lean is too strong. My dad realizes it’s a problem and shouts at me - “PUT ALL YOUR WEIGHT ON THAT ROPE!!!” No good…. The tree is not moving toward me… I’m basically just holding it in place. Keeping it from falling on the neighbor’s fence. He shouts again… “Hold on! I’m getting a wedge!” and he trucks off and his fatherly run pace toward the shed at the back of the nursery. Yup. I’m just left there. All my weight on a taught rope. Balanced precariously. Trying to keep the tree from falling the wrong way. Really - trying to get the tree to fall on me.

It seemed like an eternity but back came dad and he slammed the wedge into the opposite side of the tree trunk and pounded it in with the maul. The tree creaked and groaned. I was still on the taught rope - pushing down with all my might (I had dents in my knees from the rope afterwards). Eventually it moved slowly then quickly, “Get OUT OF THE WAY!” yells my dad and I do a quick dash. Narrowly avoiding getting smooshed by the grasping branches of that big old cherry. Phew.

I think it was the next summer when they fell some really big fir trees along the property line. When I came back from college for the summer my job was to use the chainsaw to cut them up and then split it all into firewood. I would run the chainsaw until it ran out of gas and then split all the wood I’d just cut. By the end of that summer I was in really good shape.

This last summer in England at the Tree Farm TD asked me if I wanted to cut down a tree. I declined. I like trees. I did enjoy running the chain saw for other reasons, though. Power tools are fun - I admit it.

Butterflies

The metal butterflies the students made to hang in the prayer garden are still there. Students made them and they are hanging from an old tree in memory of Katie. Makes me smile every time I walk through there.