Grow this!

Imagine my complete and utter delight to come upon this little treasure in a local independent toy store. A Magic Tree! Crystals! Watch it grow! In a few hours! There was absolutely no way I could pass it up, and so I decided to document the process of growing my first Magic Tree. What could be easier? You mix the crystal powder with a tiny bit of water...pour it into a dish...and in a few hours you have a magic tree. And it looks rather like a Dr. Seuss Tree, don't you think?








Magic! You actually CAN watch the crystals grow, which is completely awesome.
Important things to note: (taken from the back of the package)
1) COMPLETELY ARTIFICIAL
2) Adults and children of all ages will be delighted to receive this small treasure.
3) Miniature saucer not included.
4) Mailable.
5) It will even grow in a refrigerator.

By now you are undoubtedly wondering "where can I get myself one of these magical wonders with the imperative on the package, demanding that I grow one?"
Look no further than magic garden, where you can also purchase a Magic Dinosaur or a completely real, not-at-all-artificial Peanut Tree. I have 2 on order, and look forward to also growing peanuts.

trees in winter

patiently waiting for spring.

Winter Wonderland

I currently live in the south, where we are rarely graced with even a flake this time of year. So in an effort to bring more fluffy white trees to my blog this winter, I am recycling some of last year's trees from an April storm in upstate New York. I had flown north for a "spring" wedding and ended up stranded by a foot of snow. Ah...so glorious! Couldn't work, couldn't get home...so naturally, we played in the snow.

Living on a tree

In case you don't know, you absolutely must: You can live in a palm tree. Or, rather, on one. We humans have actually shaped the land (played God, if you will) and created Palm tree islands in Dubai, sticking out into the Persian Gulf.

OK, so you can only live here if you have millions of dollars.

These are (or will be) the three largest man-made islands in the world. (one is still barely begun, but when finished, it will put the other two to shame). Currently, The Palm Jumeirah is considered the Eighth man-made wonder of the world. "Helping solve Dubai’s beach shortage, the island has doubled Dubai’s existing coastline and will also double the number of beachfront hotels in the city."
Ironically, I don't imagine there are too many trees growing on these homemade tree islands. Can anyone verify this? Has anyone been there? Does anyone have anything good to say about these extravagant, opulent, arboreal (FAKE!!) islands?

Resigned

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."

– Willa Cather

(Thanks, Blue!)

tree top

I'd like to climb up there.

Ansel Adams

Today's featured artist is Ansel Adams - a master of breathtaking black and white landscape photography. I've collected several of his famous tree photographs here.

Adams was a pianist, photographer, writer and environmentalist born in San Francisco in 1902. He loved nature from a very young age and spent a great deal of time hiking, exploring and photographing in Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada. Adams was devoted to conservation issues, and fought hard to protect areas of American wilderness from development. He also worked to promote photography as fine art and played a role in establishing the first department of photography at the MOMA.

See more photos here and here.




I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.

- Ansel Adams (1902-1984)

Happy New Year

The Christmas Tree

I love Christmas trees. I love LOVE the smell of pine mingling with the plastic-y burning scent of cheap Christmas lights. I love sitting in a room lit only from the tree lights (and perhaps a fire in the fireplace) with Christmas music silently playing, staring at the ornaments, maybe sipping tea or cider, and...well, that's what we call "having Christmas Tree." Ahh.

Sadly, I did not have my own Christmas tree this year but a visit to New York City to see the crème de la crème of Christmas trees was sufficient.


(Photo by wallyg at Flickr.)

This Manhattan wonder is referred to by locals simply as "The Tree." The first tree at Rockefeller Center actually predated the Center itself (erected amidst construction rubble by workmen in 1931) but ever since 1933, there's been a tree (sometimes 2 or 3) on display at Rockefeller Center. Check out the timeline with photos and stories of all the trees over the past 75 years here. The first tree was a mere 20 feet tall, but today the top branches reach 85 feet! The tallest Christmas tree at Rockefeller reached 100 feet. My grandma, a New Yorker for over 50 years, claims that the best trees were the ones with the big lights all over them. This year, however, the tree is covered in LED lights, and solar panels have been constructed on the roof of the Center to help power the lights. So, as they say, this is the first year the tree has been "green."

You simply must check out the Tree Guy Blog and watch the journey of the tree from its first home in Connecticut to it's last home in the big city. There is a point during which the tree "flies" through the air, and I'd love to have seen it, though I find the whole thing a bit sad. The good news is that The Tree will be recycled in January and if you live in New York City you can bring your own tree to MulchFest 2008 to be ground into wood chips for trees and gardens.

After seeing the big tree, I came home to help my parents put up and decorate their own small tree...and managed to get sap on my jeans, arms, and even the bottom of my slipper. The pine smell is delicious. Here are some more famous Christmas trees:

More Leaves!!!

I could look at these colorful trees all day...

Here's to Julius

"The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful, and the ennobling in man, and for one, I wish to see it become universal."

– Julius Sterling Morton
(founder of Arbor Day)

Apple Picking!

One of my favorite memories of this time of year growing up in Upstate New York is apple picking. Every year we'd bundle up, mom would pack a picnic lunch, and we'd pile into the car and head to Littletree Orchards. Other families and friends would usually come, and while all the parents would get out the bushel baskets and begin picking Empires (the local favorite) us kids would run free among (what seemed like) miles and rows and rows of apple trees! The orchard was called "Littletree" for a reason. Even as children, we could reach the branches and pick a perfectly crisp, ripe apple from the tree and rub a shiny spot just large enough to take a juicy bite before tossing it away and running to another tree for different type of apple. My favorites were a huge, green, very crisp variety called (appropriately) Crispin or Mutsu. I also loved the Macoun - some of them were so large I had to use two hands to hold one apple in order to bite into it.

Ahh...I miss those NY apples. They do NOT taste the same anywhere else - they have to be fresh! I don't like apples when I'm not in NY.

At some point after we had worked up an appetite, mom would get out the cider and powdered donuts, and we'd have a snack, and then my dad would organize a contest. We all had to try to find and bring back the best apple in a range of categories, such as: "Largest," "Most Red," "Smallest," (some of us would bring back berries and try to pass them off as apples), and occasionally there was the creative contestant - One year my sister was the self-declared winner of the "Most-Rotten-Apple-Still-Hanging-On-The-Tree" category.

The final hurrah was at the top of the little hill in the clearing, when the boys would have batting practice with icky apples that had fallen onto the ground. It was messy and funny and just a wonderful time.

***

For the record...I didn't take these photos. I refuse to go apple picking in North Carolina. I can't WAIT to go home for Thanksgiving and have some Cornell Apple Cider. The best in the world! You should all be thoroughly jealous.

Nature's Craftperson

Ok, now it's chilly here, and finally feels like autumn. This little tree looked so whimsical today in the sunny breeze I just had to show you all. It seemed to me that someone had strategically Scotch-taped fake paper leaves to a bare tree skeleton. Seriously! Look at this leaf:


Mother Nature got a bit carried away with the hole-puncher.