11 Comments
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Honeybee's avatar

Really great article, Stegiel. Thank you.

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jacquelyn sauriol's avatar

I trust plants. When one considers their extreme longevity compared to ours, they are the elders by a long shot. Talk about adaptivity.....

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Kathryn's avatar

I love to think of the big old beech near my house as an Ent.

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jacquelyn sauriol's avatar

Portland, OR has a lot of problems, but this town does appreciate their trees, at least. Probably more than the people, at this point.

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Stegiel's avatar

My recollection of driving up to Portland after a wedding in Eugene is not recent. 1997. I still visualize logging trucks and the clear cutting and the jest “Oregon. Trees too.”

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jacquelyn sauriol's avatar

The locals here were quick to point out how thin the strip of tree'd land was next to highway 23 to the beach.....my 1924 home is filled with Douglas Fir, and a large one looms above my house, doing it's best and making for much life outside. This place runs on Doug fir sap, and cedar sap....

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Stegiel's avatar

Stewardship of a seemingly endless natural resource was in hands of Timber Companies and Timber Merchants. We might rewrite the Frontier Thesis of our Constitution to reflect frontier seeking as a goal. Technique has a rationality of money.

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Stegiel's avatar

Hope in good shape. I read owner pays for tree removal if fallen on a house.

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jacquelyn sauriol's avatar

Doug Firs drop limbs like lepers.....last one took out an awning, came within feet of house....I think the trees try NOT to hurt, from what I have seen, but that sometimes they do fail catastrophically. I see it more as the house is what is the intruder, not the tree. But I am funny that way.

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