March 24

         Today G and I drove Hwy. 22 out of Hebo, to Valley Junction, and then south to Salem.  It was a darkish day of pouring rain, the only color and beauty of note being offered by the Indian plum trees now dominating roadside hedgerows.  Myriad clusters of dainty white stars, flowers-like-stars draped amid bright green leaves.  Color from another plant might subdue the plum in contrast, but for this small window of time they are the color and the only blooms.  This stretch of Hwy. 22, the Sourgrass Pass, is the most concentrated abundance of Indian plum trees I've ever seen.  

         Their beauty and abundance make me want to sneak these trees into the fencerows of poplars and pines planted on Highway 22 nearer Salem, by the feedlot.  (If you drive this highway, you know this area by the smell of the feedlot, though the trees are pretty and one notices the regularity of their planting.)  The pines and poplars (that new timber-producer, fast-grower species) have sterile feet, need Indian plum and other low growers grouped around them.  And then the red osier dogwood would creep in when the birds came for the fruit and the cover, and some blackberry and perhaps the lovely native crabapple. Then would come Douglas spirea and snowberry. Little mammals and many birds would be happy to call the fencerows home then.  

          We need a crop of planting "taggers" who will plant trees and shrubs on the sly. (I remember now, there is at least one person who sometimes cuts a few of these trees - and then angry signs appear, and letters are written to newspaper editors.  This is NOT what we need.)  Night raiding Johnny Appleseeds.

         Are you saying, "This woman needs to get away from home more" - this being the furthest from home I've been since Christmas, except maybe to buy that tractor - and maybe you noticed that?   Salem is one and a half to two hours from Hebo.

         But I've been thinking about places far away, about areas that need tree planting desperately.   The Nature Conservancy has a program in Brazil, planting in the rain forest, and Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots kids came up with the idea of sponsoring the building of tree nurseries in Tanzania and encouraging the planting of trees there.  Great ideas.  I'll send money, but I'd like to get my hands - and "my" trees into those soils.