Leafing along in the Northwest

I haven’t written in awhile, and that was brought home to me at a gathering on Wednesday evening where a few people mentioned my lapse. So I’ve decided to take keyboard in hand and log an entry in the ole blog.

Trees have been my life lately, at work and off work. At work I talk to citizens about which tree they want planted in the stormwater facility on their street, whether they want a tree in the facility, how and why we are trimming the trees in their neighborhood, why we are cutting trees, and how lateral sewer connections affect their tree roots. I should be a frick’in arborist! Yesterday afternoon we had our quarterly get together offsite, to do brainstorming. Guess what one of the topics was…that’s right, TREES. To be specific, how to get more people to plant street trees.

At home my interaction with trees is less stressful, it involves watching leaves change color, and observing how they tumble and dance around in the wind. I love fall in the northwest! The color is inspiring, and uplifting to the spirits. There are a few downsides to them though. For one, there is the raking, and two, the slipping and falling when they get wet and begin to decompose. With the amount of rain we get this time of year leaves can be problematic, but I love them anyway.

Speaking of weather, we have officially entered the rainy season, which means we will experience precipitation in one form or another pretty much every day from now until June. This situation is the main reason more sunglasses are sold in the northwest than in any other part of the country. We are all so light deprived that the smallest amount of sun will blind us.

This weather is also the reason that almost everyone keeps multiple pairs of shoes under their desk at work. I personally have a pair of closed clogs, a pair of open clogs, a pair of lace-up leather shoes, and two pairs of boots. You never know what you will need to get through a day. In fact, I need to go shoe shopping for some new commuter shoes that will keep me from tripping on all the leaves. So I’ll leaf you now to embark on other duties. (I know, it’s a real groaner!)