Yes, I’m a Tree-Hugger

I 've learned that in Waits- burg, one's backyard can be the target of a selective little snow bliz- zard as late as the month of May. Actually, in my case with property on the alley between Main Street and Coppei, it's guaranteed.

Every year when temper- atures rise and the foliage explodes all around us, our whole neighborhood gets covered with fluffy white fir that gets into everything, including my plants, my garage and even my house.

It doesn't melt like winter snow. It sticks around and clings to everything. In late summer, when the sun beats down and the barometer reaches in the 90s, it's still there, stubbornly hanging on to tree roots and the gravel in my parking lot.

I'm sheepish to say that I myself am the source of this snow, though I have about as little control over it as a wheat farmer has over the weather in the Blue Mountains except for one radical intervention I would never consider.

The "snow" comes from the cottonwood trees that line the drive connecting Main Street to Coppei. There are four of them and they are enormous, which is why my radical intervention would never really be an op- tion unless I wanted to take down these majestic senti- nels and spend thousands of dollars doing it.

Despite my neighbors' friendly ribbing and occasional grumbling during the "snowy season," I don't want to eliminate any more of the precious trees that make our town such a pleas- ant place to live. With the widening of Seventh Street and the removal of several venerable deciduous giants, there is already enough of that.

This time of year, when we may grouse about trees and the trouble they cause in the form of cleanup projects or allergies, we should hug them for the shade and shelter they provide.

I'm lucky to have lived in homes with yards and trees. The first little house I owned in Chehalis, Wash., had an enormous chestnut tree and I was glad to clean up nuts and shells in return for the shelter with which it envel- oped our young family.

Waitsburg and Dayton are endowed with a rich variety of native and orna- mental trees. Many were planted by the first set- tlers, who understood the importance of shade and soil stability on this drier side of the mountains, not to mention their quality of life. They planted maples, oaks, chestnuts, dogwoods and the aforementioned cottonwoods to complement native species already here: ponderosa, lodge pole pine, western white pine, interior Douglas fir, western larch, spruce, locust and hemlock.

So important are trees to our everyday life that they should be considered fellow residents. They absorb heat as they transpire. They provide shade that reduces solar radiation; they reduce wind speed, provide plac- es for kids to play, soften the architectural landscape and embrace us with color, form, texture and oxygen.

There are economic rea- sons to hug our trees: they can add to the value of real estate - by as much as seven percent according to some studies. They can in- crease worker productivity and bring down the cost of air conditioning or winter heating when used as windbreaks.

The loss of trees, sometimes older ones, is obvious- ly inevitable. The limbs of maples sheer off in storms, shedding pines can threaten power lines and street proj- ects sometimes require un- fortunate sacrifices.

In the case of Seventh Street, the city has offered to replace the handful of "seniors" we've lost, and that should be the policy in the private domain as well. For every tree we lose (for what- ever reason), another should be planted in its place.

Oh, yeah, feel free to call me a tree hugger. Have you hugged one today?