Dan's Papers - June 5, 2009 - Tree People: From Supervisor Scott Russell To The Wetzel's

A nap might do the trick. I was just plain tired after some heavy-duty cleaning so I settled in on the living room couch, pulled up a big quilt, and closed my eyes.

Unfortunately, I couldn't close my ears. I knew what the noise was. I'd seen the bulldozers earlier in the day and now they were doing their thing. Knocking down trees on a piece of land half a street away. Truthfully, I considered crying myself to sleep.

For this is the third treed plot to be cleared in the past month - all within a short walking distance from my home. Now I know folks have to live somewhere and I'm sure my new neighbors will become my good friends. But oh, I miss those trees.

I attempted to sleep by counting trees rather than sheep. Special trees. Like a tall pine in my grandma's backyard. Often our family sat around that tree and drank grape juice on warm summer weekends more than half a century ago. Now my favorite trees are the ones I save as I weed. You know. Take a little shoot. Plant it in a safe place. Maybe even forget about it. And then, a couple of springs later, there's the gift of a tree.

They say it's not fair to play favorites but I think other North Forkers must have their special trees. So I leafed through my address book and called a few friends. Even stopped at a North Fork tree farm. To branch out a bit.

Tom and Joan Wetzel are tree-people. Their favorites are the blue spruces in their Cutchogue yard but they gave a place of honor to an oak. When they built a deck in their yard, they provided an opening in the deck floor so the oak might grow tall and strong through that opening. If you've oaks on your property, you know the meaning of autumn-glory color. The Wetzel world is green, yellow, brown, gold, red. With oaks you may do lots of raking. But you're raking in a rainbow.

Now meet a Southold guy who sat in his office and told me about his special trees. He's a pretty busy person, Scott Russell is, and that's because he's Southold's town supervisor. People come to him with all kinds of problems and requests. Guess that's why he seemed happy to talk trees. One of his favorites is a blue spruce he planted in his backyard. Correction - his wife planted the tree while Scott supervised.

Scott has memories of other trees and those memories brought a grin to his face. One of four Russell brothers growing up in Cutchogue, Scott was used to lots of rough-and- tumble play. Like climbing Nassau Point's swamp oak trees and even occasionally wrestling, rolling around and bumping his head on a sturdy oak tree trunk. Ouch!

By the way, one of those brothers is Scott's twin. If one twin falls out of a tree, does the other feel the pain? Just wondering.

Say hello to Paula Reeve who works in Jamesport, lives in Cutchogue. Paula's special tree is a Bradford pear in her front yard. Planted by Paula's mother, the tree is covered, come May, with white blossoms and is what Paula sees from her bedroom window each morning. "I know that spring is really here when that tree flowers," says Paula.

Paula recalls other trees, a mimosa and a weeping cherry, she and her brother often climbed 25 years ago in that same yard. Now Paula's sons, Tyler and Jason, climb those very trees.

Yes, I did check in with a tree "pro." Riverhead's Danielle Raby, dressed in a heavy flannel shirt and jeans on a chilly spring morning, works at Shade Trees Nursery (I love that name) in Jamesport. Danielle says the Kwanzan cherry is their best seller. It's an easily grown ornamental tree with pink blossoms.

Danielle's childhood home on three acres had lots of trees and her folks "couldn't keep me indoors." She was usually found climbing her favorite Norway maple. Now Danielle is mostly outdoors helping North Forkers choose the perfect trees for their yards. "Ask questions," urges Danielle, "before buying a tree."

No question about it. We love our trees here on the North Fork. Whether a century-old oak or a tiny just-planted white pine, it's a North Fork tree that tells us to stand tall and search for heaven.