Volunteers’ hard work planting trees is appreciated

Trees. I have been walking on the Chehalis western Trail for over 30 years, even while it was still a railroad grade. There have been many improvements, the grading, filling where an old train trestle was removed, the blacktop paving, cement bridges across all the highways, and more.

Since growing old, I have lots of foot trouble and don’t usually walk that far from home to spend some time on the trail, but today I wanted to see how the wild blackberries were coming along. I found that they were quite green yet, probably a couple weeks to go.

I couldn’t help but notice how much some trees had grown since volunteers planted them along the route and then worked to make sure they had a chance to grow. Lots of work cutting scotch broom and etc to give them a chance. Some appear to be 30 feet or more in height. I saw some newly planted trees as well.

I am proud of those people; I myself have trees to watch grow at Ft. Lewis and Camp Murray. I grew up in the woods and love trees. I was bothered though; as I plodded along I viewed several piles of dog feces. I was wondering if the owners of those dogs are also proud of what they left for others to enjoy.

Olympia

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 2:19 PM with the headline "Volunteers’ hard work planting trees is appreciated."