15 Celebrations in Spruce and Birch

welcome to the party – grab a shovel!

A happy intersection of events resulted in the planting of 15 trees at the homestead this March. Our new saplings were procured from the Pierce County Conservation District annual native tree and plant sale in Puyallup, Washington. I discovered their sale only just this year thanks to the magic and happenstance of the Internet.

These trees were lovingly planted during a wonderful spring rainstorm on March 14th, and with all the wet and wonderful forces of the waxing moon in Cancer to inspire them. Five Birches and ten Spruces are now growing where evergreens were removed some 15+ years ago by the original property owners. Our land is well suited to these tree species because it has lots of healthy, wet soil with good drainage.

If you follow the trio of trunks of the tallest hemlocks to the ground, you’ll see where the new trees are now tucked. The land dips down in the foreground, which will give the new trees a few years to get some height before the 10-year-old White pines, Douglas firs, Red cedars and Hemlocks overshadow them. The t-stakes visible in some of the pictures below were probably used for a horse corral; they will be reused in the future when we embark on the Great Chicken Adventure.

15 trees & 15 celebrations

1. For Mothers & Grandmothers: Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)

2. For Fathers & Grandfathers: Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis)

3. For the Festival of the Trees #58: celebrate tree celebrations!

4. For Berry Go Round #39: (because I missed the deadline for BGR #38)

5. For Arbor Day 2011: shovel-dance in the rain!

6. For the Spring Equinox: get out and dirty while robins sing the sun up.

7. For the International Year of Forests 2011: Forests for People! Reach into the Earth and connect.

8. Reparations: replace trees sacrificed for the foundation of a happy home.

9. Reparations: replace trees sacrificed for the satellite dish of an awesome internet connection.

10. Gratitude: give thanks for the gifts of health and friendship and work and fleeting wisdom.

11. Humility: give thanks for the gifts of lessons learned and challenges faced.

12. Friends Departed: sustain the memories of those who have shared their love and are now beyond us.

13. Friends Arrived: seed a little hope in the shade beneath a rock, see what grows out.

14. Justice: for the trees cut down each year, I plant these trees as a small offering of restitution, and with the hope that others will plant location-appropriate trees in kind.

15. Just Because: because there is simply no such thing as ‘too many trees.’

Come out and party

with me! Soil your fingernails,

dig in, plant a tree!