OK, call me crazy. Last night I started humming Led Zepplin’s good times, bad times, you know I’ve had my share, but the words going through my mind were good trees, bad trees, you know I’ve known my share. This really is a bit crazy, I admit. But it’s also true that me, a treehugger at heart, now looks at trees differently.
We just bought a new place off Teller 1, and when I look at the trees around it, I see a whole lot of them that need cutting. There are the three old pines up against the house, and the one tangled in the electrical wires. There are the ones on the hill that are blocking the little winter sun that we get. And there are the ones that are bunched in a draw, far too tight for their own good. There are the ladder fuels from firs and spruce, that definitely need trimming up a ways, and the dead aspen set up like pick-up sticks among another tight bunch of pines. Our forest isn’t healthy, and so are trees aren’t all good.
I still love trees. I really do. And I love our forests. They are beautiful. They provide services to us, ranging from holding the soil to capturing CO2 from the atmosphere. They provide habitat for our wildlife. And they can heat our buildings, and make electricity. How can you not love trees? But loving them doesn’t mean never cutting them.
Carol Ekarius
Executive Director,
Coalition for the Upper South Platte
www.uppersouthplatte.org