I can’t believe how large this newsletter has become. Yall are awesome. Newsletter subscriptions and RSS feeds are sort of a return to analog consumption. Not like an algorithmic feeding tube full of SEO and marketing slop.

Thanks for being subscribed and reading these. I appreciate ya.

Lots to say today. But first some housekeeping: did you to see the last video I uploaded to our YouTube channel? It was a video summary of the most recent article that was published in the TCI Magazine in February. The article is titled “Thoughts on Tree Risk vs Stress, and Hollowing”.

You’ll be able to see the article in full by clicking that link above, it’s in the description of the video.

Speaking of, we’ll be posting a lot more on the YouTube channel this year. Rather than working on articles and releasing them regularly, I’m instead working on my second book. I hinted at this while on the Discovering Forestry Podcast, but I’m making it known officially here.

I have a lot of material already created, a lot of material in progress, and a lot of material on the list yet to be touched. Writing takes a lot of energy and time for me to craft, which is why we’ll be creating videos in the meantime. Basic videos are easier for me to create than detailed and precise bodies of words.

Starting April, we’ll be releasing 3 discussion videos. Some have already been created, but not made public yet. Aiming to keep these videos around 25 minutes in length, where Jack and I discuss some topic within arboriculture. From there, we’ll have a video-release schedule that we haven’t determined just yet.

I have no idea of a timeline for the new book’s release. But I can tell you a bit about the new concept:

A Tree First Approach was written for both arborists and non-arborists. The book is a zoomed-out guide for taking care of trees in a way that emphasizes their longevity. A book that anyone can read and understand.

In contrast, this new project is more in the weeds. It is being written for other arborists or folks in arboriculture-adjacent fields who want something more philosophic than tree-care basics.

Here are some excerpts I’m willing to share with ya:

From On Wounding:

It is quite difficult to diagnose diseased or stressed trees, let alone interpret the body language of a single branch. The evidence gets destroyed too if something is cut off and thrown into a chipper. An easy vehicle to justify any cut with. “It was diseased”. This is especially confusing to me considering many climbing arborists or cutters tend to avoid the domain of stress reduction, or as they call it, “PHC”. 

Do the consequences of the “diseased limb” outweigh the consequences of creating a fresh wound?

From Insects Don’t Just ‘Attack’ Trees:

I see the term ‘attack’ used in the same sentence as ‘insect’ quite often. Used as a word to describe what insects do to trees (or any plant, for that matter). 

I was just reading about an important event in American history: the invasion of the emerald ash borer into the country. I understand how ‘invasion’ perfectly describes our end of that event. And perhaps that is indeed what happened–but the author maintained that the insects were attacking the ash trees.

Verbiage like this is abundant in tree industry literature too. Training arborists to dislike insects, that they are bad for trees. And that notion incidentally trickles into how they talk to their clients about nature. A problematic position to work with nature from.

Do insects do anything besides attack?

Yeah dude they do. Lots of things.

Here’s a few more teasers for ya:

• Is Production Good for the Product? A chapter about consequences of hyper-optimized production tree care.
  

• Arboriculture Happens in Conversation. The way information is communicated affects how people respond to it. Emphasizing a certain flavor of communication we’ve found to be very effective in tree retention.
  

• Trees Don’t Exist for Mankind Only. This chapter attacks the idea that trees have a ‘useful lifespan’. Criticizing the notion that a tree’s economic or aesthetic value is worth more than its ecological value.

So far I’ve got a table of contents with about 20 or so chapters. I’m not totally sure how all of the chapters will all fit together, or what they’re all doing.

Perhaps this will be just a collection of essays that, hopefully, summarize this philosophy clearly. Perhaps I’ll find ways to connect chapters to each other in a linear way to produce something more tied-together.

Lots to think about, and a long way yet to go.

That’s enough for today.

Don’t forget to log off for some time this weekend dude. Seriously.

Later,

Jeremiah & TF