Tree Therapy

Forests -- and other natural, green settings -- can reduce stress, improve moods, reduce anger and aggressiveness and increase overall happiness. Forest visits may also strengthen our immune system by increasing the activity and number of natural killer cells that destroy cancer cells.

This quote is from a recent Science Daily news article about the research done by Dr. Eeva Karjalainen, of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, Metla. But this is not news to a lot of us, especially those trying to live a well-rounded healthy life that includes the right diet and exercise, plenty of sunshine for the vitamin D, good posture, going barefoot, getting to bed soon after dark, and other lifestyle changes that mimic the way our paleo ancestors lived. Mark's Daily Apple had an interesting piece on the subject just ten days before this article came out called Forest Bathing.

One wonders if an ocean atmosphere would have the same effect. I've always thought that the salt sea air was the best air you could breathe and "everyone knows" how healthy seafood is. But I have always loved trees and have often wondered how I ever found myself living in a desert.

Anyway imagine my angst when I recently had to have a 40-year-old tree, a Canariensis pine, removed from my property because it was getting too big, making cracks in the walls between me and my neighbors, not to mention dropping needles in my neighbor's pool and generally making a mess every August. My husband and I had been saying for years that sometime that tree would have to go, I just finally decided that the time was now.

It was actually fascinating to watch how the men did it without damaging anything on my property or my neighbors.' Only one guy worked up in the tree, while three others worked on the ground to remove the branches as soon as they fell. After all the side branches were removed, the cutter tied heavy ropes around the remaining trunk in several places with two long ropes extending to the ground at the top and bottom. Then he cut between the ropes. Meanwhile the men on the ground pulled on the top rope to guide the trunk piece down on my side of the wall. The cut piece was caught by the ropes and hit the remaining trunk. From there, they pulled it down to the ground where it could be cut into smaller pieces.

I miss the tree, but since it wasn't a California native, it wasn't popular with the birds and local animals although the squirrels did love to eat the cones. But now I will have the opportunity to plant natives that will attract more of the native birds and fauna.

Maintenance Closer to Home

Where have I been? I've been doing my part to stimulate the economy and keep California's construction workers on the job by taking care of my house. It all started with my annual termite inspection. The guys who did the inspection said that there was so much wood damage that they could no longer tell what was old termite destruction and what was new. They recommended tenting and replacing all the damaged wood. I opted to have all wood replaced and postpone the tenting until next year. After all, if I replaced all or most of the wood, why bother tenting first? And I wanted to have the whole outside of the house painted when they were done. I couldn't afford to do it all. They agreed to wait until next year to see what new damage there might be before tenting and meanwhile they would spot treat any live termite infestations that they found.

We are so fortunate here in California to have two kinds of termites to contend with—the usual subterraneans who get their moisture from the soil, plus dry wood termites who get their moisture directly from the wood. Apparently, they both enjoy our Mediterranean weather as much as we do. My son in Arizona has no problem. It's both too hot and too cold for them there. I have lived in this house for almost 40 years. We had the house tented once in the 80s and have had annual inspections ever since so I knew I had damage from both kinds of termites. It was time to do something about it.

Once they started to work, the carpenters found more damage than they anticipated, but they only found two or three places with active termites in them, thank goodness. The photo above shows the kinds of tube-shaped paths the dry wood termites make while the photos on the left and up top show damage from the subterraneans. (Yucky, I know.) The subs build tubes of mud up from the ground which you can sometimes see. The presence of dry woods is harder to determine. In some cases, a piece of wood looked perfectly sound from the outside, but when they cut it, they found termites at work on the inside. As you can see in the photo, the beasties very cleverly avoid the edges and do most of their damage in the center of the wood. Their presence becomes apparent when you find their detritus falling down on you!

The guys who did the work were excellent. There were five of them and all knew what they were doing and worked together well. They finished the job in less time than was predicted, too. Then it was time for the painters. Stay tuned...

Garden Transformation

One of my birch trees died this summer. I have scheduled my tree men to come and remove it and its neighbor next week. Of all the trees I have on my property, that was the one I would want to keep. My husband and I planted three of these European Birches when we bought the house in 1970. One died immediately and the other two survived until now. The companion tree to this one never looked very good, has a rotting trunk, and is only still green at the bottom. So both will go. It will be a sad occasion.

For years the birds have used the branches of these two trees for perching and would sing to me from the top. When my sprinklers turned on, birds would come from all around to have a drink and a bath and then hop into the tree to preen and dry off. It was quite a show. The trees provided me with fall color which reminded me of home, which is why we planted them in the first place. I loved their lacy look and the distinctive white bark.

But since go they must, I have decided to turn this into an opportunity. I am making plans to get really serious about having a native California plant garden—one that is more drought tolerant and eventually easier to care for (I hope). I have started researching the idea after being inspired by my canyon walks, my friend Kathy's garden, this article in the LA Times, and the guys over at Breathing Treatment. I've already had a talk with Ann Barklow, the arborist at Garden Magic. It was she who suggested that the birch trees died of phytophthora (root or crown rot). This was puzzling to me because the trees have gotten the same amount of watering in the same way as they have for the last 38 years. Why now?

Anyway, now I must decide whether to have someone do the job for me or do it myself and whether to do it all at once or piecemeal. To help me make plans, I have bought three new books on gardening with natives: California Native Plants for the Garden by Carol Bornstein, et al., Designing California Native Gardens by Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook, and the American Horticultural Society's Southwest, Smart Garden Regional Guide. This last is not devoted entirely to natives but does include some good information about a lot of them. I already own Bob Perry's Landscape Plants for Western Regions, a beautiful coffee-table-type book full of natives and drought tolerant plants for the Southwest, which Ann tells me is out of print.

Of course, I'll also get advice from friends and neighbors. I think it would be rather fun to do it myself and very educational. And I'm in no hurry.

Clean Up, Clean Up, Everyone, Clean Up!

That's the little chant my daughter sings to get Toddler C. to help with cleaning up his toys. She makes a game of it and it works! He helps to fill the toy box and the plastic bins with a smile and a song. I've been chanting that little ditty all morning and all last week, too. I was way behind in getting rid of the clutter around here. But since I want to have my other grandson come and stay with me for a week this summer, I have to clean up what used to be his father's bedroom and what is now the den.

I started with the books. There are books everywhere in this house due to the fact that I am a biblioholic. My husband had his fair share, but I way outstripped him. When my son's bedroom became the den, we installed huge bookcases along one wall. I thought I would never fill them. Hah! They are overflowing as you can see. Most of the shelves have books behind the visible books. And I am ashamed to admit, all those books are mine except for one lone shelf way at the end up at the top where my husband had a few books. But to be fair, he had an office at work where he could hoard his stash and I have found boxes out in the garage filled with his college textbooks. We also shared many interests, so the books on astronomy, birds, and quantum mechanics were read by both of us.

I even have books in the pantry—cookbooks, what else? Now that I am a low-carber, I don't have shelves and shelves of packaged goods like cereals, cookies, crackers, etc. anymore, so I filled the shelves with cookbooks. Then they are handy when I need them. The living room has a fancy bookcase filled with art books. I never could resist buying the beautiful coffee-table-type books they sell at exhibitions on the exhibition. I will have much more restraint in the future because now there is no more room.

OK, I know the obvious is to throw some away, or give some away (to whom?) I am doing that. Just this morning, I threw away about five books I bought in 1973 on how to get yourself published. Blogging on the Internet has taken care of that urge. In fact, the Internet has taken care of a lot of research problems. I don't need any of the directories or encyclopedic type books anymore, because I get that information from the web now. Besides, those kinds of books are out of date before they even get printed. And now there's Google Books.com, where you can find all kinds of goodies. I recently found some out-of-print genealogy books there that I was able to download as PDFs. I am keeping my huge, unabridged Random House dictionary, though. I don't want to have to fire up the computer just to look up one little word.

Speaking of the computer, I am cleaning that up, too. Literally. Here is a link to Microsoft's tips on cleaning your computer. At first, I thought they meant disk cleaning and de-fragging, but they mean actually opening the thing up and using a Q-tip to clean the dust out of the inside. But I am doing the disk-cleaning and de-fragging, too. It's so much easier than other types of cleaning. You just click the mouse on OK and the computer does the rest.

Once you get started, says my daughter throwing things away gets easier. I'm not so sure. It isn't as easy as it used to be to throw things away. I feel obligated to re-cycle, and then there is hazardous waste to consider. You can't just throw things in the garbage bin anymore and be done with it. In fact, I have a book on how to simplify your life by Scaling Down, which tells you what to do with your stuff. Even though I have no plans to move anywhere, I found the book helpful. Reading it also allowed me to procrastinate a bit longer. But now, where do I put the book?

The garden needs cleaning up, too. The spring growth has made many plants too large, so they need pruning and cutting back, and the weeds have taken over my herb garden. But that's another post.

Did I mention all the music I have collected over the years?