Hello again! Greetings from vacation. Can you believe that? I hope you got to enjoy one too.

As things winded (or wound?) down in December, I was able to get on an awesome writing schedule. Including those two article submissions to TCIA Magazine, over this time I’ve made two videos, four articles, and have two drafts going.

But today marks the time in my schedule where I’m allowed to resume doing some Tree First behind-the-scenes stuff. So I’m still sorta on vacation since I don’t have to be in the field for another while.

I don’t have a lot new or interesting for ya, I’m sure some of you have seen the videos and articles already. Not much to report from the field either since we’ve all been chillin’.

Regarding the TCIA Magazine article submissions I teased last month:

The magazine’s long-time editor recently retired. While they transition to the new one, I’m not sure what the new protocol will be. Ordinarily in the past, after I submit an article, they’ll do some of their own editorial touch-ups and then send it back to me to approve or deny.

We did get a quasi-approval on the “The Market Demands Removal” article, surprisingly. I say that because in my criticism, I name the very magazine the article is to be published in. The editor told me they were going to try to decrease its length, but that was about 2-ish weeks ago. Haven’t heard anything since, so we’ll see.

Chances are they’ll take a long of the punch out of it, but rest assured, the full version will be on our website shortly after they publish it. I’ll announce it on our Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube when that time comes.

Here’s an excerpt:

Perhaps there are shortcomings in tree care’s education paradigms that don’t properly prepare many arborists to actually weigh-in on a tree’s stability. Funny though, because we’re sort of expected to do that exact thing. We’re confident in saying it needs to come down, but not confident in saying that it can be left standing. A fundamental misunderstanding here of both risks and expectations.

The industry’s dominant role has been subtractive: taking trees away, getting ‘rid’ of people’s problems. After all, the default Big Arb setup is to first get some tree killin’ machines. An unfortunate magnifier of this problem is the public’s shallow tree literacy. The so-called ‘experts’ often know more about their chipper than they do about trees.

Hence why competing estimates with vastly different recommendations erode public confidence even further. One company says the tree’s gotta go, I can be here tomorrow. Another says a bit of choice end-weight reduction can meaningfully reduce the risks.

These companies could both have the same credentials, the same equipment, the same everything. How is the public to rationalize the huge variance across professional recommendations?

It is easy to come to the conclusion that tree-work is guess-work. It is easy to look at the space we’ve created and think that all we do is cut trees down.

It’s funny: the former editor of the magazine has told me in the past to shorten some of my articles. So when I sent “An Argument Against Mechanization” in, he told me it was too short. I was so excited to produce something under 3 pages lol, I thought that would be the one that would land.

Here’s an excerpt from that one:

Importantly though, mechanization of certain industries can result in quite good outcomes. The onset of mechanization in agriculture in the US, for instance, has led to massive increases of food being produced. That has its own criticisms too, like widespread deforestation on a planetary scale, or the over-production of food, nitrification of soils, massive farming companies buying out family operations etc..

The point being that mechanization in that domain had a clear and justifiable rationale for a nation growing in population, even though it still has downsides felt to this day. But now it is normalized. The drawbacks have been accepted, and there’s no going back.

I’m sure there were old-timers back then who didn’t see a need for change, who were just fine doing things the old way. Who didn’t see a need to optimize and scale to that degree. Only to get left behind by large corporate farming operations willing to buy all of the land, scale everything way up, mechanize to its logical end conclusion. Lots of money to be made, lots of food being produced, but lots of environmental problems along the way, and I'm sure a loss in how connected farmers felt to their crops.

A number of parallels are happening in our tree care industry. The benefits of mechanizing agriculture are a lot more tangible than simply increasing profits, speed, and safety for a tiny subset of the population (tree workers and tree companies). Quite similarly to agriculture’s mechanization though, the already problematic and consistent loss to the number of trees will worsen as we all accept this direction. This problem has compounded with each major advancement in tree destroying technology.

These two articles were written simultaneously, the shorter one being a spin-off tangent from the longer one. I’m not sure how I’ll publish them just yet; in which order.

I guess we’ll see what TCIA plans to do with them first. The longer article is co-written by fellow BCMA Sam Finco. It’ll be nice for readers sick of my voice to see a new one blended in there.

And speaking of that; I’ve got a lot of arborist friends who have good perspectives on the tree care industry. I’ve been urging some of them to write articles for the Tree First website.

This diversifies and amplifies other voices worth hearing in the industry. I don’t know if I want to become like the TCIA Magazine, but it is kind of a cool direction when I think about it. Having an editorial about arboriculture that isn’t driven by tree-killin’ stuff. Is ‘editorial’ even the right word? Not sure, but you get the idea.

That’s all for this time. Let me know if you think this idea is cool. Should we make a digital magazine or something?

Look, I know I have a habit of spoiling projects that never germinate but this one seems pretty easy lol. I think it ultimately would mean we can publish more without adding to my already huge writing docket. And gives me time in between my own publications, ya know?

Anyway I hope you had a good break. Hope you’re recharged. Or if you’re still dormant like me, hope you can stay that way as long as you need.

TF Forever