I have never been afraid of heights, when I was 2, my mom would often find me on top of the fridge, squeezed into the spot between the fridge and the cabinet above, sleeping. When I was 3 or 4, I climbed out the second story window of our house, made my way down the street to my grandmas.
Something about climbing has always excited me! I grew up across the street from Johnson Elementary in Davenport Iowa. Out front they had several very large sugar maple and a few big pin oaks. During the summer, the school yard was my play ground. I lived in those trees, on the fire escape, and on the gym roof! I had a spot in the maple directly across the street from my school, wasn’t very high, say 20ft, but I could get up and sit back on the big broad leader that slowly swooped up into the sky, it had perfect branches for climbing, I could go anywhere I wanted in that tree, most people didn’t even know I was there, creepy to think about, I know! I just didn’t want to be the weird kid in the tree!
When I was older, I and my cousin and our mob squad of kids would build endless amount of forts and tree houses down in the woods by the “creek” in Bettendorf. I always was the one climbing up to nail this or hang that. We learned that trees made good shade spots when we had wiffle ball tournaments at Lb Stadium, aka the sandlot! I look back and realize that I have always found myself drawn to the trees. So, I guess that’s why, when running a tree service fell into my lap, I decided to run with it.
I’m glad I did, because there are a lot of things that trees do, that I never even considered. I’m not going to go real deep, but just a few tidbits for you to think about.
Like, trees can save us, from ourselves! They shelter us, keep us warm. They clean the water we drink, the air we breathe; they provide food and keep us cool! And that is just the start.
Let’s talk about air, we all know that trees provide oxygen, but do we ever think about Carbon Dioxide? A mature tree can sequester (trap) over 3 tons of it! Think about that, if each of you planted a tree a year…………
Trees clean our water, they slow the rain, allowing it to soak into the ground, slowing down storm runoff, reducing erosion and they help maintain creek and river banks. Trees can filter out many elements out of the water by absorbing them though their root system.
They feed us! When we lived in Fallbrook, California, our house had 4 orange trees, 5 avocado trees, a pear, apple, peach, lime, lemon, mandarin, 2 grapefruit trees, and a black berry bush! We never bought fruit! My guys would come in on the weekend and maintained my yard in exchange for picking the trees each week, ensuring they always had fresh fruit on the table for their families.
Trees provide habitats for some edible wild life such as squirrels and birds.
Trees protect us from the wind, ever notice that most of the farms are surrounded by trees? I have been told that proper placing a wind break on a farm it can reduce heating cost by 30% They stop snow drifts from accumulating around the rural homes, making the fear of being snowed in during a emergency go away. Not to mention they screen dust, noise and maintain a natural privacy fence that looks a lot better than sea of metal or green treated wood!
They provide so much material for the products that we depend every day that I can’t even begin to list them all. STOP! Look around right now, how much stuff can you see that was made from a tree! Pretty crazy right! How many books have you read, or for that matter, seen! It’s everywhere you look!
What about that cork in your wine bottles…..Trees!
Did you know that if you heat wood, not burn, but heat it, it will emit a gas that can run small engines!
There are many more benefits of trees, and I could go on, but I think you get the idea! We need them, they sure don’t need us. The number one pathogen to the tree is us. It’s sad, but it’s true. We, humans are more responsible for the lost of our trees than all other ailments combined. We can fix this. It starts with you. Next time you look at a tree think about all this. Its looks as if it’s just standing there taking up space, while in reality, it is doing more for the earth, as it stands in front of you, than we are!
