Tree Hugging

Meeting My Tree

 So Friday in www.women.com we went Tree Hugging, in the most literal sense. We drove out into the woods of Elmira, and then were blindfolded, disoriented, and brought to our tree. We had ten minutes to get to know our tree before we were led back to where we met. We then had to find our trees without our blindfolds.

It sounds hard, that's what I thought at least. There were a whole lot of trees in the area, and I didn't know how I would possibly be able to tell one from the other, especially if I hadn't seen it. Some of the major characteristics of my tree that I committed to memory were the sound it made when I played it like a drum (don't laugh, it really worked! It made a funny rattling noise, and it vibrated all the way through when I did it), I also measured it's width by hugging it, noting that I could wrap my arms around it and touch my elbows, and there was also a funny knobby type thing right at the tip of my fingertips that I could feel.

Reunited!

Now, I don't know if I would be able to identify my tree a second time if I was blindfolded, or if it would have made a difference if I was more disoriented, but I was able to find my tree really quickly. I knew that I had to have been close to the street because I could hear the cars clearly, and I knew I was on an uphill slope - so once I took off my blindfold I had a good idea of the general direction I wanted to be in. Then there were only three trees with index cards on them. The first one I drummed on had the right sound, so I wrapped my arms around it and touched my elbows, then reached up and found the knob, so I knew it was mine. It was actually pretty fun. If you'd like to see a video of us stumbling around the forest hugging trees click here!



It was a really fun field trip, I like being outside and I liked watching everybody hugging their trees. I wouldn't say it necessarily made me feel closer to the environment, but it was a different and silly experience, and nothing like what I expected - which was something more along the lines of this....

So maybe I wasn't expecting this on our field trip on Friday, but, this video is what I think of when I hear the term "treehuggers". However, there are awesome and less frightening ways to be eco-friendly and this website is a great source of information on the environmentalist movement, so you should check it out! There's lots of awesome stuff from new environment friendly technology to bicycle sharing programs (and also a pretty awesome piece on house raiding baboons).

Til next time!