Goal #1: Plant 1,000 Trees

If you look at my very first goal on this bucket list you will see that it is to plant 100 trees. I have always loved trees. I always will. Trees are a lot like people. There are billions of trees and each one is different in its own way. Another goal I have in my list of goals to be completed is to buy 5 to 10 acres of treeless land and reforest it. I think that would be so cool to plan out and reforest such a big piece of land.

Trees have a lot to teach people. They seem to have their own unique qualities. They can be intrusive at times while others live a life of solitude.

Trees seem content to count on  God to provide for them. They accept what life gives them and seem to flourish when planted in a good area. If they start life in poor soil or exposed to rough elements, they fight for survival just like people do. They may be bent and stunted because of they spend their entire life fighting the elements but they choose to live and don't give up.

In 1979, I spent a summer internship in Hood River, Oregon managing about 80 acres of fruit trees. A portion of the orchard was planted in apple trees more than 100 years ago. I especially love going into that part of the orchard when they day was hot. The trees were bent and gnarled with age. Most of them had holes in them where branches once grew out and had long since broken away. Nearly every one of those holes served as nesting holes for a variety of birds.

That entire section of the orchard was always so shady because the century old trees grew so wide. I always had to pay special attention when I mowed those trees because if I grew careless and didn't pay attention, one of those old branches could easily knock myself off my tractor, into the mower or under the wheels.