Trees

I have been planting trees. I think they are awesome.

The biggest of plants, of course. Don't correct me here, they are. I'm sure someone will insist, "Well, actually, a lawn is technically a single plant, or, "Did you know that some examples of seakelp can cover an area greater than 50 ancient oaks?". Yes, I'm sure. But we all know the truth, trees are the biggest plant there is, that's that. Huge, mighty, regal, calm and dignified. They are awesome.

I believe that many humans are scared of trees. On a certain level, a strand of their mentality is uneasy, possibly scared, of these things beyond their command, which can dwarf them, in height and duration, in all possible dimensions.

You hear defiant language from people, "I'll soon have rid of that", "We'll have that cut down to size before someone slaps a preservation order on it". This talk seems to me to be attempting to assert their superiority, they will not be outdone by anything, no trees, no elephants, nothing. The simple fact is though that we are outdone by the megaflora and megafauna. They outsize us, they often outlive us and they almost always out-class us. All this cutting-down-to-size, all that hunting, all of the ego boosting we attempt, it is all false, we fool ourselves. Can you really fell a tree? Or kill a rhinosceros? I actually doubt it. I think you don't stand a chance. Not without someone's help. I don't know how to make an effective axe, or a chainsaw and I would have to study a great deal and use machines that someone else had put monumental wisdom into perfecting, to get even close to machining a functional firearm. Could I/you fell a tree, or fell a big dumb beast? No.

It is only with the help of a great many people and the learning of centuries that a person can hope to impose himself upon these clearly superior giants of creation.

Undoubtedly, I must have my delusions, I should spend a while pondering them some time, but one of them is not an overly swollen opinion of my significance in the bigger picture. Trees are awesome and I, truthfully, am not.

I planted today, an holly, an ash, a rowan, a horse chestnut, a beech and an oak. I lost the oak, he was such a little fellow that when I turned my back and trudged around, fitting protection tubes around the stems of the other saplings, when I looked again for my mighty oak, I couldn't actually see him, what with all the long grass that had recentl sprung up. "Never mind", I said aloud (one of the joyous releases of being alone in a big field is that you can talk to the trees, even the ones that aren't there, without anyone questioning your wellbeing), "the rabbits will decide his fate."

When the trees are mature, I will be dead. Bit of an issue, that, although I was theorising at work today about building a vault under the field in which I could cryogenically deep-freeze myself. Might get around to that. If I don't though, then I'll just be dead when they achieve full blown magnificence.

I will get to see some of it develop though. Of their awe, they will manage I'm sure to dispense some, while I'm still watching. My revenge against human inadequacy, I am not afraid, I am small and content with that!