The Souls of Trees

My best friend's father once confided to me that trees were his first friends.  I understand completely, for they were certainly among my first friends, too.

My love for trees started when I was a kid.  My parents had this great maple tree out front that was perfect for climbing.  It had plenty of branches that were low enough to scramble onto, and plenty of branches in general.  I spent many, many hours of my childhood in the branches of that tree.  My sister and I used to climb up it and hold perfectly still so we could eavesdrop on the conversations of the people who were walking laps around the block.  Or, we'd go up it with some small stuffed animals and bonnets from some of our baby dolls, and we'd tie the strings of the bonnets around the branches and make swings for the stuffed animals.  We played countless games up that tree.

As I got older and my sister outgrew tree climbing, the tree became my refuge.  I loved to sit quietly in it and just feel the rustle of the leaves and the quivers of the branches in the breeze.  Its strength and beauty were soothing.

I never did outgrow climbing trees.

Saturday, my husband and I drove over to my Dad's house to do a little tree doctoring.  That sweet old maple is still there, although considerably thicker and more gnarly than it used to be.  It's doing fairly well, considering all the bark that squirrels have stripped off it over the years.  It had an old dead snag that needed to be cut down before it fell and took out a power line, and since my husband and I are more of tree-climbing years than my Dad, we volunteered for the project.  It took but a quick scramble up, some rope, and a couple of cuts with Dad's chain saw, and the old branch came down without any problem.

It was a pleasure to be back in my tree again.  It always is.  I think my husband's affection for that tree is nearly as great as my own, now.  I still climb it whenever I get the chance, and my husband being who he is, always scrambles right up after me.

Thinking about my love of trees makes me remember my experiences in the UK.  When I was in college, I had the luxury of spending 6 weeks backpacking in Ireland and Scotland during a break between terms at Oxford.

I spent the first three of those weeks in Ireland, exploring old ruins and castles, rambling through fields with irritable bulls in them, and enjoying Irish music in the pubs in the evening.

I loved Ireland, with all its majestic beauty and stone ruins, ancient history and warm friendly people.  Yet when I took the ferry from Northern Ireland and landed in southern Scotland, I found myself noticing that I somehow felt relieved.  It took me nearly 24 hours to realize it was because of trees.  There were so few trees in Ireland that, without realizing it, I had begun to feel lonely without them.

I spend lots of time in the woods, including plenty of time in a tent.  Especially at dusk, but at other times too, I am conscious of the presence of the trees - such massive beings.  How much they've seen!  Some of the oldest that I encounter have experienced many more years than I have.  I confess to talking to trees on occasion, too.

I know my best friend's father and I are not the only ones who feels so strongly about trees.  There are so many myths and legends about trees - from stories about women turning into trees, to the Ents in the Lord of the Rings series - that it's clear trees hold magic for many.

One of my all-time favorite children's books a dear friend bought me when I was in college.  It's called The Voice of the Wood, and is about a craftsman who made musical instruments.  He had a favorite tree that he loved, and when it died, he made a cello out of its wood.  The cello was magical, and eventually taught the most talented cellist in Venice humility.  The illustrations themselves are magical, and the tree a powerful presence in the story.  It's a fairly safe bet that I'll like any tale that features a tree as a major character.

As for me, I'm certain I shall both talk to and climb trees for many years to come.

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Tree Troubles

When we bought our house, we knew that we had some not-so-healthy trees in our backyard.  At the moment we have 3 sugar maples, 1 GIANT spruce, 1 apple and 1 pear.  The spruce and apple are so-so health wise, and one of the sugar maples is doing fairly well.  However, 1 of the sugar maples is exceedingly unhealthy, 1 is somewhat unhealthy, and the pear is on its last legs. 

Looking up into my beloved spruce:

We took some of the dead branches off one of the sugar maples when we first moved in because it happened to stand waving all those dead branches right over our driveway.  I'd prefer not to have to find out whether our homeowners or our auto insurance would cover the damage if our tree squished our car.  Although we bought ourselves some time trimming off dead branches, it's time for the whole tree to come down.

My husband has a client who is a certified arborist, and runs a business doctoring and removing trees.  He's very knowledgeable, and at least thus far seems competent.  I know a number of people who have had bad experiences with tree removal companies, so I'm pretty picky about who I am willing to hire to cut down trees in my yard.  This fella meets all my requirements of bonding and insurance and all that jazz, and also generally seems to have some pretty high standards.  Don't tell him this, but I'll probably pay him whatever he wants to charge us for removing that tree.  The other tree removal companies we've talked to sounded pretty shady (pardon the pun!).

In the background is the one healthy sugar maple, though you can't tell since this was taken in the spring before it got leaves:

The poor pear tree we can cut down ourselves with little more than one swing of the axe, though we're getting a quote for removal of that second maple, too.  It's probably cheaper to do it all at once, but I suspect it will be a little while before I can afford to have that one cut down.  If that tree falls it may squish our barn, which wouldn't be good, although might be better than squishing the car.  Come to think of it, though, if it hit the barn hard enough it would also squish my husband's beloved classic 1983 Mazda RX7 that is in the midst of being restored.  That would be bad.  But, insurance money for the barn might permit us to put in a more useable garage instead.  I'd hate to see the old barn squished, though - call me sentimental.  Thankfully, barring a massive and catastrophic storm, I think that second maple is a long way from the falling and squishing stage.

The happy news?  We have something to plant to replace one of the sugar maples.  A few years back my husband and I found a kit for growing a baby elm tree.  My father always loved elm trees, so on a whim we picked it up for him.  This particular little seed came from a tree that was naturally resistant to Dutch elm disease.  My father diligently followed all the instructions for how to get the baby tree to grow from a seed, and while I don't know the details, I think it involved a stint in the freezer and whole bunch of random soil/water/light manipulations.  Clearly he did something right, as it's now a healthy growing tree, and is getting too big for Dad's yard.

As soon as that maple comes down, we're going to try to dig up the baby elm from Dad's yard, wrap its substantial baby elm root ball in burlap, transport it to our yard, dig another massive hole, and put it in.  I hope we manage to do it properly.  If we wait much longer, even the three of us won't be able to manage getting a root ball that big out of the ground, and rumor has it that spring is the best time to transplant trees.

Surely, this is a saga that will be continued.  Probably with photos.  Hopefully they will be photos of a happy little transplanted elm and a chopped up maple, and not of downed power lines or huge divots out of my yard or anything else bad.  To be continued...

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