Earth Day: If You Love Me, Plant a Tree!!!

I was out on my daily walk, when I spotted the first one on the road. It was a tiny maple seed pod, also called a samara, and it was so itty bitty that I thought it might make a nice HAT for one of my Crittergators. So I picked up that one, and then a few more. EVERYbody will be wearing cool hats for the next photo shoot, I thought!

By the time I finished my walk, I had a whole pocket full of them, of many different sizes. I wondered if anybody saw me picking them up off the road. Would they think I was crazy? Did I really even care? And then suddenly, the vision came to me, clear as day: all of the seed pods assembled together to make a tree! And so here is my vision, made real. (The Crittergators - red and green, like the seed pods, couldn't resist appearing in this shot.)

It happened to be Earth Day, and so it seemed fitting that I make some art that is from beautiful Nature. You know how I adore trees, so it would make sense that I'd build a tree. Yes, I'm a tree hugger from way back when. But do you know how much good one tree can do? One tree can:

*provide oxygen for two people to breathe for one year
*if a full-grown apple tree, can provide 2500 apples in a year
*prevent water damage and erosion
*absorb 48 pounds of carbon pollution per year
*provide cooling down in the heat of a summer's day
*make us healthier and happier, just hanging out among them (even 5 minutes can help!)

Like Thoreau, I have faith in a seed. In fact, I have faith in ALL of these seeds. Call them what you will: helicopter, whirligig, whirlybird, spinning jenny, samara, seed pod. They are TREES waiting to be born. What better thing can you do than this, if you love your Mother Earth?

Yes, plant a tree!!!

These samaras are from maple trees. So my soundtrack song is the Maple Leaf Rag, actually performed by the guy who wrote it, Scott Joplin.