Painting of the Month

This Is My World, 36″‘x50″ oil on linen 2019

Trees have been in the news of late. Swiss scientists published the results of a study that states planting a trillion trees will go a long way to help solve global warming. Not long after, Ethiopians planted 353 million trees in one 12-hour period. The Ethiopian military delivered the saplings for the population to plant. It was an effort to reforest the country and bring a divisive nation together.

I’ve done my part. In the four decades Ken and I have lived in Providence, we’ve planted more than 35 trees. Our city lot may only be a quarter of an acre, but it is a veritable forest of hawthorns, Japanese maples, Cedar of Lebanon, acacia, amur cork, and quaking aspens. A tree I love – a chokecherry – was a gift from a bird. (They eat the fruit but can’t digest the seeds.)

Trees don’t live forever – there are always losses. We woke one morning to find our 30-foot Blue Atlas cedar on it’s side, a victim of high winds. It took down a fence and damaged a weeping cherry. Gypsy moths have done severe damage to the tree population in our state. You can’t help but see the skeletons, bleached grey and leafless, interspersed among the living trees. Forest fires ravage large swatches of land all over the globe.  even now they burn in the Amazon rain forest.

Plant a tree. Plant two. It’s a promise to the future and a way to ensure the planet survives with its beauty intact.