Earth Day is this Sunday, April 22nd. Today I am focusing on trees. I have always been fond of trees. I spent many hours playing among the trees in our windbreak next to the house. Our land had been in the family for over a hundred years and my great grandfather planted many trees and an orchard on our farm. After leaving home to go to college and then find a job, I realized how lucky I had been to have this experience as a child. Sadly, no one in my family wanted to manage a farm and the land has been sold and most of the trees have been cleared for farming.
I grew up on the Great Plains where areas of trees can be few and far between. There are trees in windbreaks and a few in clumps around farmsteads but there are miles of land with no trees at all. If you have ever driven across the Dakotas, Nebraska or Kansas you know what I mean. That is somewhat the nature of the area; flashback two hundred years and think vast acres of tall grass and buffalo. Now and then a fire started by lightening would burn out all the poor trees that happened to sprout there. The grasslands persist to this day in some areas. Much has been converted into farmland and grows wheat, corn and soybeans. The photo below is probably a harvested cornfield. Even though I still feel that the plains states are lacking in trees, it was much more barren some 150 years ago. This all changed when J. Sterling Morton moved to Nebraska.
In 1854 J. Sterling Morton, a journalist from Michigan, brought his family to the Nebraska Territory and became editor of Nebraska's first newspaper. He and his wife were both nature lovers, and their new homestead was quickly planted with trees, shrubs and flowers. Through his newspaper, Morton spread his enthusiasm for planting trees. Many other pioneers missed the trees of their homelands and embraced his ideas for agricultural plantings of windbreaks and shade trees. The pioneers also grew trees for fuel and building materials.
Morton proposed a tree-planting holiday to be called "Arbor Day" to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture. The first "Arbor Day" took place on April 10, 1872 and over one million trees were planted in Nebraska! Originally April 22nd (Morton's birthday and now Earth Day) became the official date for Arbor day. Now it is typically celebrated on the last Friday of April. As Arbor Day spread around the world, it is celebrated on different days to coincide with the optimum planting time for trees in that area.
Morton's home still exists and is now the Arbor Lodge State Historical Park and Arboretum and is located in Nebraska City, Nebraska. The surrounding area also includes
Arbor Day Farm, Lied Lodge and much more.
More Trees Please
My husband and I have lived in several different parts of the country and over time decided that one thing we wanted was a home with trees. Not little stick trees that you see in all the new housing developments, but big mature trees. Years ago we built a house on a lot that had large mature trees. I was a plant novice at that time and did not realize until a few years later when they didn't leaf out in spring that they were American Elm trees. I cried the day they came and cut them down.
Now many years later I have a home with beautiful mature trees. We made sure none were elm trees this time. We have enjoyed them and nurtured them and admired their strength and beauty. Our trees have brought us joy because of the all the wildlife they bring almost within our reach. A friend once said our house was like living in a tree house, because when you look out you are up high where the squirrels and birds live! We have sugar maple, ash, silver and Amur maple, spruce, pine, birch, mountain ash, mulberry, oak and willow on our property. They are not completely leafed out yet but here are a few pictures of some of our mighty trees.
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Looking up the trunk of a large silver maple tree under the squirrel house. |
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Under the canopy of white birch, maple and ash trees.
When you celebrate Earth Day and Arbor Day, I hope you remember this prayer for the trees.
The Forest's Prayer
"I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun, and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on.
I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie, and the timber that builds your boat.
I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead, the wood of your cradle, the shell of your coffin.
I am the bread of kindness and the floor of beauty. You who pass by, listen to my prayer: do me no harm."
Traditional Portuguese Prayer
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Natasha in Oz
Earth Day Spirit at the Heart of a Wizardess