Happy new year. Happy holidays. Try to take a break; I’m sure its been busy for you too.

As much as I want to vanish into a quiet writing month like I do most winters, I don’t think this winter I’ll be as lucky. There are important things that need doing. But before we take a short break, I want to take nod at what the heck happened last year.

For you new subscribers; most of these newsletters are not quite like this one. On that note, this edition marks the 2-year birthday of this newsletter! That felt fast.

Last year began the first full year with our nearly final-form pruning van. A vision years in the making. Click here to see a video of that van.

Several popular opinion articles were released this year, most notably the Poaching article. A few articles in the Tree Care Industry Magazine too, where we introduced the Practitioner Model to that readership.

2024 was also the first year we spoke internationally for the first time in Canada at the Spoke ‘n Loam conference in Edmonton Alberta Canada. A fantastic opportunity and occasion we were privileged to rise to.

I’m sure lots of us are perhaps a little tired of hearing about it, myself included, but I should acknowledge the release of A Tree First Approach was a pretty cool milestone too. The feedback has been amazing, and I couldn’t be happier that it is being found to be a useful book. The community support has truly been astonishing.

Being featured guests on two podcasts this year was another fun activity. Being on the Discovering Forestry podcast is always a treat!

I’m sure there are forgotten things on that list. Here are some things we’re looking forward to in 2025:

• Speaking at the annual Midwest ISA Chapter conference in Overland Park Kansas on January 30th, 2025, among some other smaller presentations throughout the year.

• Hiring another practitioner to the Tree First practice

• Working on two other larger creative projects, no details for ya yet (might result in not-as-many articles this year)

• Stress management! A big one for the inside of Tree First lol

Alright, last chunk of text here. I just updated the Newsletter Archive, so if you’d like to see some previous newsletter editions you can.

And moments ago, I just dropped a new article that you can read here. It is a breakdown of what types of jobs we did at the Tree First practice throughout 2024. Some cool stats in there. Y’all are the first to see it. I’ll probably announce its release later today or tomorrow on socials.

Thanks for sticking with us. Time for a nap.

TF forever