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+---
+title: Trees
+---
+
+Trees have influenced my life many times over the years. This little
+memoir attempts to organize all my significant tree experiences into one
+place. The motivation for this odd little treatise is that the item
+"Plant a tree" is on my life's bucket list. After pondering about the
+trees I have planted, I decided to expand the topic to other aspects of
+interaction with trees also.
+
+My first memory of a tree experience comes from my earliest childhood
+playground. My family lived in a small white house in Lakeview, Oregon
+in 1958. We lived next to a kind old woman we referred to as Granny
+Green. In her back yard there was an ancient apple tree. It was large
+enough to support the weight of a 5-year-old boy who was learning to be
+like Tarzan of the jungle. I remember spending many lazy summer days in
+that back yard either under the tree or up in it. I hope to see Granny
+Green again someday in Heaven to thank her for those pleasant memories
+and her kindness to me and my siblings.
+
+## Treehouses
+
+Every healthy child must have a tree house embedded in his childhood at
+some point. My first one belongs to the period when my family lived in
+Oregon City in an old farm-house we rented for about a year or so. This
+would have been about 1964 when I was in the 5th grade of elementary
+school. There was a large old cherry tree in the spacious back yard of
+that farmhouse, not too far from a huge barn full of smelly old hay,
+bugs, pigeons and ancient farm equipment. The cherry tree had a few
+large branches that extended nearly parallel to the ground at a height
+of about 12 feet. With a ladder and some sophisticated engineering
+skills, my brother and I managed to place a few planks of wood across
+those branches to form a crude platform. This platform hardly qualified
+as a true treehouse, but it was our first attempt at this kind of
+construction, and we were still learning the skill. It was just large
+enough for two small children to sit on and contemplate the vast world
+below us. The comforts of this treehouse were fairly meager, but
+occasionally we could eat fresh cherries without leaving the living
+room.
+
+My next attempt at building a treehouse was considerably more
+sophisticated. I can't claim all the credit for the engineering marvel
+we created because our friend Dan Kraus filled the role of lead
+construction engineer in this project. I'm guessing I was about 16
+years old by this time because I remember going to a lumber mill with
+"Old Blue", our old blue Chevrolet station wagon that had been in the
+family since the dawn of time. We paid them a dollar for all the lumber
+scraps we could jam into the cargo hold of that station wagon. It was
+perfect for creating the treehouse of our dreams.
+
+Dan Kraus chose a great location for the treehouse. It was located near
+the top of a steep drop-off that descended about 100 feet to the river
+bottoms below. This land was part of the original 60 acres that my
+father bought when I was about 14 years old. He built the family home
+about 1/4 mile away at the top of a hill overlooking the river valley
+below. We found a clump of maple trees that were perfect for our
+treehouse. There were 4 big tree trunks that rose toward the sky roughly
+in the shape of a 4-pointed diamond. Two of the trunks in the middle of
+the diamond were only about 18 inches apart, but the other two trunks at
+the top and bottom of the diamond were about 6 feet apart. The floorplan
+of the treehouse is shown below.
+
+![](md/07_Trees-media/media/image1.png){alt=""}
+
+As you can see from the drawing above, there is a square hole in the
+floor between the two tree trunks that were close together. This hole
+was the door to the treehouse. The only way to get into the treehouse
+was to come up from below the floor and squeeze through the hole in the
+floor. It was not the best arrangement for invited guests and visiting
+dignitaries, but we weren't too worried about those issues when we
+designed the treehouse. Now this was no ordinary treehouse in other ways
+too. The bottom section of the floor (as shown in the drawing above) was
+the living room and it had sides that rose about 6 feet and then it had
+a roof over it. The top section was open to the air because it had no
+sides, just a couple of boards to act as guard rails. This area was the
+veranda. We also put up guard rails on the tree trunks above the living
+room so you could climb up there and be on the lookout for pirates
+coming up the river. We called this upper room the "crow's nest"
+because you could see a large marsh and lots of water-fowl in the river
+bottoms below us. The view was amazing and made us feel like we were the
+kings of a vast kingdom of wild and untamed wilderness below. I wish we
+had taken a picture of this treehouse. It was a source of great pride
+for about one summer. Then other things like girls and cars become more
+important and the treehouse was left to rot in the forest.
+
+## Climbing Trees
+
+I can remember two specific times when I nearly met with disaster when I
+climbed a tree. The first happened at the same home where we built our
+first tree house. There was an old apple tree near the house that had a
+huge limb that extended quite far over the ground 20 feet below. I loved
+to climb out to the end of that limb and bounce up and down. The limb
+would sway up and down about 4 feet. I thought I was like a cowboy
+riding a wild stallion in the air. I was too young and foolish to
+consider that I might be overstressing the structural strength of that
+tree limb. I just knew it was a lot of fun and wanted to impress others
+with my bravery and climbing skills. On one occasion, I was riding the
+wild stallion when my father came out in the yard. I yelled to him to
+watch what I could do in the tree. I threw all my weight into the effort
+to make the show as impressive as possible. Suddenly there was a sharp
+crack as the large tree limb finally gave up and broke under the strain.
+Now all my bravery evaporated, and I screamed like a little girl as the
+broken limb and I fell to the ground below. Fortunately, I didn't break
+any bones, but my pride was considerably bruised as my dad ran over to
+assess the damage. When he found that I wasn't hurt, he just chuckled
+and said, "Well, I guess you learned a valuable lesson about how
+gravity works, Dan."
+
+The second memorable occasion when I climbed a tree illustrates that I
+didn't learn very much from the first memorable tree-climbing incident.
+We lived in a rented house in Vancouver when I was about 10 years old.
+The neighbors across the road had a small pasture for a horse out behind
+their house. Located in the pasture was one of the largest fir trees I
+had ever seen. It rose about 80 feet into the air and was probably over
+100 years old. To me it seemed like the magic bean stalk from the fairy
+tale "Jack and the Bean Stalk". I often wondered what the world would
+look like from the top of that huge old fir tree. I finally worked up
+the courage to attempt the climb and found it to be quite easy. There
+were plenty of limbs to grab ahold of as I ascended to the top. I never
+really felt any great fear as I climbed up that tree. I didn't tell
+anybody about my daring climb because I was fairly certain that my
+parents wouldn't approve. I made it up to the top of that tree where
+the trunk was not very large and decided that was far enough. I had
+proved I could do it and I was ready to come back down. One false move
+and I would certainly have fallen to my death from about 80 feet in the
+air. If you were one of my children or grandchildren watching from
+heaven, you might have had reason for great concern. After all, I was
+not only risking my own life, but all of yours too. You might still be
+stuck in heaven waiting for your next ticket to come to earth because
+your foolish grandpa fell out of that tree and broke his neck. Anyway,
+you are reading this story, so I must have been OK.
+
+## Planting Trees
+
+The first trees I planted are possibly a whole forest of fir trees now,
+but I will likely never know. The first summer after I returned home
+from Brazil, I was hired to plant fir trees on a piece of logged off
+land owned by Jim Granger, a good friend of my father. I'm not sure,
+but I seem to remember that there was a government grant program that
+encouraged people to replant their land with trees after the mature
+lumber trees had been harvested by the logging companies. Accordingly,
+Brother Granger obtained hundreds of young fir seedlings and hired me
+and another college student to plant them. I remember trudging over the
+hills for many hours with a bundle of young trees and a shovel. It was
+back-breaking work, but it was somewhat satisfying to think we were
+contributing to a program that would make the world a more beautiful
+place. Hour after hour I pushed the shovel into the ground, pushed it
+over to the side to create a space in the soil, shoved a seedling into
+the opening, removed the shovel, stomped on the dirt around the young
+tree, then took three steps and repeated the same sequence. I've often
+wondered what ever happened to those trees, but I never had a chance to
+go back there again.
+
+The next trees I planted were in American Fork, Utah. Lori and I had
+purchased a starter home in a small neighborhood next to the railroad
+track and the freeway. After the house was built and the yard was
+planted in grass, I planted two red-leafed ornamental maple trees in the
+front yard along with a northern pecan tree beside the driveway. In the
+back yard I planted a peach tree, a red delicious apple tree and two
+cherry trees. They were all part of an ambitious back yard garden plan
+that included strawberries, raspberries, asparagus and a vegetable plot.
+
+We waited for several years while the fruit trees grew big enough to
+finally start growing fruit. About the third or fourth year later, the
+apple tree burst forth with hundreds of white blossoms after the winter
+finally gave way to spring. Lori and I were so excited to see all those
+blossoms because they meant we would soon enjoy the delight of
+harvesting our first apples from that tree. Alas, it was not to be. A
+few days later, I came home from work to learn that Emily, our oldest
+daughter, had climbed into the tree and picked every last one of those
+blossoms off the tree. I guess she was making "popcorn balls that would
+smell so sweet" or some silly thing, but she managed to totally collect
+every single one of those little white blossoms. Needless to say, she
+got in big trouble for her sinister prank. Her punishment was that she
+had to give me her most precious stuffed animal for the rest of the
+year. I felt that she needed to understand what it felt like to lose
+something that was very important to her. Then she might understand what
+she had taken from me. Perhaps I over-reacted a little, but it seemed to
+make some kind of twisted sense at the time.
+
+## Living with Trees in Maine
+
+My family moved to the state of Maine in 1989. We lived on an acre and a
+half of forest. It was composed of mostly Eastern white pine trees with
+a little bit of oak mixed in. One scruffy giant was directly in front of
+the house beside the driveway into the garage. It was ancient and
+knobby, but interesting to look at. Due to the location of the house, we
+seldom experienced much direct sunlight because of all the trees.
+
+I did plant a spruce tree in the forest there, but only because it was a
+gift and I didn't know what else to do with it. Now, I always enjoy the
+opportunity to plant a tree, but while I lived within such an abundance
+of trees already, I decided it would also be a bit of fun to cut one
+down. Allow me to explain.
+
+After one particularly long and cold winter, we discovered that one of
+the trees in the forest had died. We had a wood burning stove in the
+house, so I decided I would cut down that dead tree and use it for fuel
+in our stove. The technique is fairly simple, but fraught with an
+element of danger. Trees as big as the dead one are large enough to
+cause a great deal of damage if they fall on something like a house.
+Therefore, I studied the problem for quite a while and came up with a
+plan to make the tree fall in just the right direction to avoid any harm
+to myself or the forest. I used my trusty Stihl chain saw to cut a notch
+at the base of the tree on the side where I wanted it to fall. Then I
+made the final cut on the opposite side of the tree and watched with
+apprehension as the old giant slowly started to lean and fall. It
+gathered more and more momentum as it continued to fall, but the
+direction of the fall wasn't precisely what I had tried so hard to
+engineer. There was a young tree about 40 feet tall and 8 inches in
+diameter in the path of the falling giant. The big tree snapped the
+smaller tree just like a little toothpick and hit the ground with a
+whoosh and a big thump. The ground shook from the impact and there were
+a lot of frightening snapping sounds as tree branches splintered and
+flew in the air. I breathed a sigh of relief after the dust settled and
+I could see that no one had been sent to heaven with my little logging
+stunt. I have to admit that the excitement and the suspense of the
+experience got my heart rate up pretty high. I could get used to that
+kind of destructive fun.
+
+Finally, I'll conclude my little epistle about trees with a description
+of the ice storm. Probably somewhere in the vicinity of 1995 we had an
+unusual weather phenomenon where the air was freezing cold at ground
+level, but not at higher altitudes. The moisture in the air condensed
+into rain which froze into solid ice upon reaching the ground. The ice
+formed on everything to a depth of about an inch. It turned everything
+in the forest into a magical crystal garden. This rare spectacle would
+have been quite delightful to experience except for the fact that the
+weight of the ice caused a terrible destruction of the trees in the
+forest. When we woke up on the first morning after the ice storm, the
+view outside looked like a war zone. Many of the trees had fallen over
+due to the tremendous weight of the ice on their branches. One large oak
+tree on the other side of the road in front of our house split right
+down the middle. Fortunately, none of the falling trees caused any
+damage to our house, but I can't say the same for the power lines that
+brought us life-saving electricity in the winter months. Most of the
+power distribution system in the whole state of Maine had been badly
+damaged. The consequence was that we were completely without any
+electricity for a period of 5 days. We managed to keep the house warm by
+burning wood in our stove, but this only kept the family room warm,
+while the rest of the house was like living in a refrigerator. I
+remember that the greatest hardship was not having any light in the
+house in the evening. We had a few candles to make a little bit of
+feeble light, but it was difficult to even read a book in those
+conditions.
+
+The other frightening thing I remember was the noise in the night-time.
+While I was in my bed trying to sleep, I was often awoken by the sound
+of crashing branches in the forest. Many of the branches of the pine
+trees had hundreds of pounds of ice clinging to them. All this weight
+caused a curious thing to happen to the trees. The branches would
+literally be pulled out of the trunk of the trees. Whenever a branch
+finally lost its battle with gravity, there would be a sharp cracking
+sound followed by a thundering crash as the branch and hundreds of
+pounds of ice plummeted to the forest floor. It was difficult to sleep
+under these conditions. All night long the forest echoed with the sound
+of crashing ice avalanches as the trees were decimated by the load of
+ice. I can imagine it might have been like the bombing raids that were
+conducted at night during the world wars.
+
+Finally, after 5 days, the power was restored and life moved on. The
+experience certainly made me appreciate the simple things we had to do
+without when there was no power. I could go on and on. Trees are still a
+big part of my life in the state of Washington. They are a fascinating
+form of life that brings beauty and richness to my mortal experience.