Posted: May 12, 2025
Some friends of mine decided to plant a tree in their yard. They loved the idea of watching it grow. It would provide shade for the front of their house and part of their yard. They took good care of the tree. They watered it. They put stakes around it when the trunk was small
Continue Reading “Love Helps a Sick Tree Recover and Thrive”
Posted: April 1, 2025
Lots of Bradford pear trees flourish near where I live in northwest New Mexico. Their white blossoms cover the trees like cotton candy in early spring. On some streets, the trees line entire blocks, filling the skyline with beautiful blossoms. I wanted to get a picture of the trees in bloom, but I waited too
Continue Reading “Bradford Pear Trees”
Posted: March 9, 2025
On Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, a tree once popular for construction, firewood, feeding cattle and making sacred artefacts became extinct. Easter Island is a special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. The overused tree also was challenged by changes in environmental conditions. By the 1960s, Easter Island’s vegetation was 90
Continue Reading “An Extinct Tree Returns to Life”
Category: Blog
Tags: Chile, Easter Island, extinct, Guardian Weekly, Pacific coast, Rapa Nui, rhizobia, soil bacteria, sophora toromiro tree, symbiotic relationship
Posted: January 30, 2025
In southwest England, fossil specimens of a forest have been discovered that are 390 million years old. They were found in the Hangman Sandstone Formation in southwest England. The forest is made up mostly of cladoxylopsids, a close relation to ferns and horsetails. They look kind of like palms but are not related to them.
Continue Reading “Oldest forest on earth discovered in England”
Posted: November 21, 2024
A community controlled forest in Mexico is benefiting both humans and the land. The town of Ixtlán de Juárez controls the surrounding forest. It is located in the southern part of the country, about 40 miles north of Oaxaca, capital of the state of Oaxaca. Oaxaca is the second poorest state in Mexico. “About 10
Continue Reading “Community Controlled Forests Have Benefits”
Category: Blog
Tags: community controlled forests, furniture factory, indigenous, Ixtlan de Juarez, logging, Mexico, Oaxaca, public works, reduce fire risk, sawmill
Posted: September 25, 2024
A baby peach tree is growing in my chiropractor’s yard in Durango. He and his wife bought it from a nursery and planted it beside a walkway that runs through part of their yard. The yard also contains a fenced garden, hollyhocks bursting with blossoms, and a variety or healthy trees, bushes and flowers. Every
Posted: September 5, 2024
Sometimes when people have an injury, it’s easy to feel like they’ll never recover. That’s especially true if the injury makes it hard for them to walk or use their hands. But there is hope. Our bodies have an amazing ability to heal. And people in the medical profession make it easier for our bodies
Posted: August 6, 2024
I saw a silver maple tree in Durango, Colorado with many leaves growing around the bottom of its trunk. They sprouted there as though they were happy, perky children of the big tree. I don’t know what will happen to those sprouting leaves, but they looked happy to be alive. Nature is like that, always
Continue Reading “Don’t Give Up”
Posted: July 10, 2024
A hollyhock in my side yard loves the environment. It receives just the right amount of shade and sun to thrive. This year, it has grown almost as tall as a tree. It stands two feet taller than the six-and-a-half foot cement wall between my yard and the rest of the neighborhood. It has a
Posted: May 17, 2024
My neighbors have an oriental arborvitae tree, that looks to me like a tall bushy pine, which grows over my fence. It has become a nursery for different kinds of doves. The first doves I noticed were two small blue and gray birds that kept flying in and out of a small entrance way among
