This may not be North Texas, but even here the call of the cicadas translates to 'summer is upon us'. I love to listen to their enthusiastic calling while in the shade by the water, preferably near the glowing embers of a dying campfire. It puts my mind at ease as I connect to slower, simpler times. Yes, you can hear the cicadas' shrilling in town, but if you visit a rural wooded wetland you will be completely surrounded by the harmonizing irregular pulse that this land's early inhabitants knew well.

Just as my campfire raged and cooled, the cicadas will flourish and decline in rapid fashion. They appear to have little else on their minds but reproduction. In layman terms, they arrive, they breed, and they disappear leaving behind only the hollow shells that cling to their old stomping grounds. It is interesting and a little sad to think about.

Here is a picture of a cicada emerging from its exoskeleton. 

A study published by Arborist News calculated and reported the economic value of good tree cover. The takeaway is this - increased tree cover equals increased values.

The study showed:

• 7% increase to property value in residential areas
• 18% increase to property value in commercial lots
• 9-12% increase in retail spending 
• 7% higher rent in office properties

This data is interesting because many homeowners and shop owners in San Angelo have trees of their own, and many of those trees are decades old, just beaming positivity into our economic atmosphere. Whether a San Angelo property's trees are pecan, oak, mesquite, ash, or from a less-common local family, it stands to reason that the trees are currently older than when the property was purchased and so the property's value has gone up. In this way growing a tree is like growing a bank account, slowly but surely. This is why it is important to treat our trees well; they make San Angelo's value go up.

The positive results have been time tested, and we've all witnessed the effects big, beautiful trees have on specific locations. A nice neighborhood becomes a scene from a storybook. A parking lot becomes a haven (mind the birds). We wouldn't want to lose our shade. Clear cutting is like hitting restart, losing years of savings.

It is vital to take care of the trees we have, to adjust our plans to allow the present trees time and space to grow, but it is also important to think about the future and start the next generation, insuring that there isn't a long interval between today's canopy and tomorrow's. Whether it is Goen Tree Care or another tree service, we urge you to care for your trees.

I invite you to share how a tree has improved your experience, whether it is your own or at a park, on a ranch, or wherever it may be.

Just like a willow
we would cry an ocean
If we lost true love
and sweet devotion

This is a stanza from "It's Now or Never," immortalized by Elvis in 1960. It uses the figure and physiology of a weeping willow tree to convey the potential heartache that would follow the loss of newly-kindled and long-awaited love.

Here's an interesting anacdote: the bichemicals released from a weeping willow have been reported to produce feelings of euphoria to those resting beneath them on sunny days. That seems like an appropriate place to go to cry and feel better. Let us know if you have any related experiences.

The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- Genesis 2:9, NIV

by Tom Hennen, 2013

There are no creatures you cannot love.
A frog calling at God
From the moon-filled ditch
As you stand on the country road in the June night.
The sound is enough to make the stars weep
With happiness.
In the morning the landscape green
Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass.
The day is carried across its hours
Without any effort by the shining insects
That are living their secret lives.
The space between the prairie horizons
Makes us ache with its beauty.
Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue
To the farthest cold dark in the universe.
The cottonwood also talks to you
Of breeze and speckled sunlight.
You are at home in these
great empty places
along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs.
You are comfortable in this spot
so full of grace and being
that it sparkles like jewels
spilled on water.

"For me, the Cottonwoods have an existential quality. Standing alone on the prairie, they take the full brunt of wind, storms, and lightning. They face all these hardships and unpredictability alone, yet as a result become stronger for it, and then can offer shelter to other wildlife in their branches and shade. Sounds a bit like the human experience!" 
-an excerpt from Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems, 2013

"Wilderness can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of our geography of hope."
- an excerpt from Wallace Stegnar's The Sound of Mountain Water, 1969