The Lorax (and his Truffula trees)

I can't believe I haven't posted about this yet. One of the best "tree books" EVER is a children's book. But it's not really a children's book.

I am an enthusiastic, unabashed fan of Dr. Seuss and his work. I don't know what else to say about that. And one of most lovable tree advocates I've ever come across happens to be a little guy straight from the brain of Dr. Seuss...our friend, The Lorax.

Our wonderful little friend, The Lorax, used to live in a Truffula (TRUFF-yoo-la) tree. Truffula trees have silky soft tufts and they come in colors like bright pink, orange, red, and yellow. These are trees you can't help but love. And, of course, they were home to our friend, The Lorax.

But one fateful day, the Truffula trees were discovered by a money-hungry entrepreneur, who chopped one down and made the tufts into something (a "thneed") to sell. And then he chopped another. And another. And then he built a factory, and before long, every single fluffy Truffula tree was gone. The Lorax tried with all his might to stop it from happening..."I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees!"...but to no avail. And all the creatures were displaced, and all the trees were chopped.

The Truffula trees, sadly, are gone, but the story is not without hope. Pick up the book and read the story! Or...watch the Dr. Seuss movie, based on the book:



If you hang on through (or skip) the credits, you will positively fall in love with the tragic, hypnotic intro song which starts at about the 55 second mark...
"grickle grass...grickle grass...street of the lifted lorax...grickle grass...grickle grass...somebody lifted the lorax away..."

I can't stop singing it.

And now go plant a tree!

Update: if you're having trouble with the video, you can view it here.

Earth Day – what can you do?

In honor of trees on Earth Day, here are a few practical things you can do to help preserve our environment and save a few trees in the meantime:

GreenDimes will actually pay YOU $1 for them to help you stop your junk mail. Why? Because they care about trees and the earth THAT MUCH. Of course, it's not very earth-friendly for them to mail you a check for $1 so you also have the option of having them plant a tree with your dollar. OR...the even better thing to do is to pay the one-time fee of $20 and GreenDimes will automatically take you off lots of mailing lists AND plant 5 trees. If you'd rather not pay, you can manually remove yourself from various catalog and junk mail lists. You may have to go directly to each company's website to do so, but GreenDimes makes it easy. Also, be sure to sign and mail back any postcards from GreenDimes, because some companies require a signature for removal from their mailing list. Do it now! Save trees here.

If you are looking for another way to help get more trees planted on our planet, but perhaps you live in a city or aren't able to plant one yourself (or maybe you just want to help fund the future forests of America)...you're in luck! These folks will do the planting for you! Every single dollar you donate plants a tree. It's so great! Instead of springing for that $4 latte four times, you could fund the planting of 16 trees. It's such an important investment and it's so relatively inexpensive that you practically can't resist. There is a $15 minimum so you'll be funding the planting of at least 15 trees. Your own little grove someday.
There's also a nifty how-to if you need help planting your own tree.

Thanks to Lauren for the very Earth-friendly tree links.