Naturally Optimistic

This makes me incredibly sad. It also makes me really angry. I didn't know about this right after it happened because I didn't know what the "honking tree" was. It was never my custom to honk at this majestic beauty while driving up Highway 61, but I did marvel at it every time I passed. It was a lone sentinel, watching out over the North Shore. It was old. It had been spared in a previous life. It was an icon. And now it's gone. Some asshole had to cut it down -for what? A prank? Malicious intent? Tree-hater? WTF is wrong with people? I will be very sad the next time I drive by it's stump...and I will probably honk my horn.

I've been sitting on this for a while, until it became OFFICIALLY official and now it has so here it goes... Steve got a new job - whohooo!!! (probably more exciting to me than anyone else, but still!) He has been trying to get a forestry job here in Duluth/NE MN for the whole time I have known him. It is not easy to break into this industry as once you're in (esp if you're working for the County or US Gov) you stay in until you retire. We could've moved to bumf**k no where - but we wanted to stay in Duluth, on the North Shore where we love it so much and VOILA! After about 4 years he's in!! The process was long - it involved testing (he had to test every year to stay on the hiring roster), a pre-interview assignment (about a timber sale or something...), a 6-panel member interview, a field assignment during said interview, a physical endurance test & a drug test. At long last all the hurdles have been jumped! He will be a forestry technician trainee and he will...

Steve has been busy creating this tree garden in our yard this spring. He's been transplanting hybrid poplars & white pines and even a maple from other areas of our yard to this place where he's digging up the turf (very tough, btw). He's also planting some new cedar & spruces which he just bought this year (and then exclaimed "I have to stop buying trees!"). He also has been doing an experiment where he takes cuttings from the hybrids and places those either in dirt or water to see if root development will start and to see if THEY will turn into trees. These photos are from a few weeks ago - there is more "garden" now and more trees in said garden....hopefully by the end of the summer things will really have taken root (including the ornamental grasses & wildflowers that I'm planning on adding to the mix.