The Susie Forest

It’s “Susie Forest” T-shirt time again. I wore my terra cotta one Thursday to the end of semester festivities for the Cheney home schoolers. My kickoff of the Read for Trees program was the kickoff of the evening’s entertainment. And I entertained them by dropping things as I tried to juggle my pictures and my tree-gram and my microphone. I hope the students are excited and will read lots of books. Chris Purviance, the parent I’m working with did a beautiful display board. So now they have my tree stump, their ballots, thermometers to keep track of the reading and lots of Susie bookmarks. Let the contest between the red oak and the Japanese lilac tree begin!

I was followed by the “real” entertainment. It began with three little dancers in pink tutus, followed by three older (by a bit) girls with sparkly cell phones. The last we saw before left were five singers in plastic derbies. As we were leaving a woman came up to me and asked if I would meet with her Girl Scout troop and tell them about the Susie Forest. Of course. Maybe there will be more girls with Susie Forest patches on their sashes. A great evening!

Resolution #10 – Find ways to use the Susie Forest logo. How shall I accomplish this one? I can’t afford a billboard or a sign on a bus. Maybe I could put the logo on pens and “forget” them all over town. That’s one idea. HERE’S A GOOD ONE! I could wear one of my Susie Forest T-shirts whenever I’m out where people might notice it. So on Monday morning I wore it to a City Council briefing meeting at City Hall. Did anyone notice? I don’t know. Today I wore one while I volunteered at the Library bookstore. I decided I would give a Susie bookmark to anyone who mentioned my shirt. No takers.
But I’ll keep on and see what happens.

Tomorrow is the first Susie tree of the year in Spokane. A hard day but a good day.

Tomorrow night I’m going over to Cheney to kick off the first Read for Trees of the year. This one isn’t for a school or a library or a group like the Girl Scouts or Boys and Girls Club. This for a group of home schooled students. It will be interesting to see how the competition goes when the students do not meet together every school day. They will vote by putting colored slips of paper in one of my paper-mâché tree stumps. They’ll be choosing between a red oak, a really big tree, and a Japanese lilac tree, a small flowering tree. And the winner will be planted at a very interesting spot. The group is moving their meeting place to a new spot, a former missile silo site. In about six weeks I’ll get to see what it looks like.

I’ve been busy filling out donation forms for several auctions and hoping that I can get my mission across. I’m trying get the people running the auctions to put the tree in the live auction and let me get up and tell my story because I think I get the audience to want to plant this tree. Auctions let me do good things for each worthy cause and to do good things for the community by planting more trees. My three new, great sponsors have really helped this happen.

I just received an email from Walla Walla wanting to do a project with the Susie Forest. I’d better answer right away.

That was a fun evening! My first sponsor, Chris Wright, donated his tree this year to Gonzaga Prep’s auction. I got to stand up and tell the large crowd about the
Susie Forest and how much they’d like to have a tree in it. The people were finishing up their dinner and chatting away at the tables so I started with the “striptease” (where I remove my sweater to show my Susie Forest T-shirt) in hopes of quieting them down. It worked a bit. As I walked back to the table I heard for the first bid for $100 amid all the talk and I crossed my fingers that it would go for at least the value of the planting. It passed that price and kept going. The auctioneer was about to yell “sold” when somebody pointed upstairs at another bidder and the price went up. The planting went for a good price. The winners were a mother and daughter who want to honor a family member in the valley or at Eastern Washington University. It will be great to work with them.

I realized after I got home that I should have taken their picture with the jar of Tree Kibbles that they also won. I have to remember to do that at the next auction.

As I walked around at the breakup of the event giving out bookmarks one woman said that she had one because I had planted a tree for her family a few years ago. Did I remember that her husband and sons had taken some of Susie’s ashes on a bike trip across the country. Of course I did. I remember hearing about their trip on TV, going to their house, knocking on the door and asking their foster son if he thought they would be willing to take Susie on this dream adventure. They agreed and this fulfilled one of Susie’s ambitions – to be on a bike trip from ocean to ocean. When they returned home we placed the ashes by the roots of their new tree in Cannon Hill Park. Now she told me they are planning a bike trip from Canada to Mexico and I asked if they might be willing to take Susie on another adventure. She thought so.

Finishing #6 on my list of resolutions was my goal for this week and I did it! Do you wonder what it was? Well, I got my tree planting supplies (except for the cookies, which I guess should be another resolution) in order. Yay!! I probably should put that one down again for fall because of my organizational style – drop and run. But for now the bookmarks, the tree-grams, the laminated bookmarks, and the brochures are all ready to go. And the supplies for the next batch are easy to find.

I am ready, set, go for tree plantings!

I arrived at the Methow Conservancy auction Thursday evening to find that Sarah had dreamed up a different way to use the Susie Forest trees. Two years ago they were used to boost the “Raise Your Paddle” portion of the auction and a tree was donated for every $5000 donated. The story of Susie pushed the amount over the $10,000 mark and the Conservancy asked their members via the Internet to decide where the trees should be planted. They were planted last fall along the Susie Trail in Winthrop.

Sarah asked if I would agree with her “weird” plan. I told her that I liked “weird”. The plan: it would be announced at the start of the live auction that a secret donor would be giving a bonus gift to the winner of every item that sold for the set value or higher and the gift and the donor would be revealed at the end of the auction. The Conservancy was concerned that many of the items had been going for less than they were worth. Guess who the secret donor was and what the bonus gift was. Of course I agreed because I love weird, secret goings-on. And, ten of the fourteen auction items passed the test and now there will be TEN more Susie Forest trees in the Methow Valley.

Friday broke new ground on early tree plantings. Before this year the first tree has always been March 21 in Spokane. Because it’s the anniversary of Susie’s death the arborist has promised that it would happen no matter the weather. He even promised to thaw the ground if need be. One year the the ground was white and the snow was falling sideways as the tree went into the ground. This year in Puyallup where it doesn’t get so frigid we planted a tree for Steven Michael Miller on a cold, windy, rainy day. The rain stopped long enough for me, my daughter Becky and my two grandsons, Sam and
Tim to write and hang our tree-grams. Then we placed a painted stone next to the tree and by Sam’s and Tim’s trees. Then the rain started again. So now George Washington’s birthday is the earliest planting day.

Becky and I went to lunch with Gael (one of Susie’s oldest friends)and her husband Jason before I caught the flight home. We talked about growing up times and Susie and of course the Susie Forest. They planted a tree for Susie in their yard in Lakewood and when I asked about it, we got into all the trees in the Forest and Jason, a city councilor, thought there should be more than one in their town. I hope so.

And – there might be an eleventh tree in the Methow. After Susie’s death a friend of hers got a new dog and named it for her. He was afraid that I might not like it but I told him that Susie would love it. He brought Susie to the auction so I could see her again. She’s a lovely dog and while petting her I mentioned that I thought a Susie dog should have a Susie tree. He smiled. So – maybe.

Time to get back to my resolutions. I think I’ll work on #6. I’ll report back next week.

Today I’m relaxing at my friend Ruth’s house, waiting for the start of my tree year. Tomorrow is the Methow Conservancy auction which will have a Susie Forest tree in it. And then a tree planting on Friday.

I brought four painted stones to put by trees, one to be put by the newly planted tree for Steven Michael, and two for his brothers’ trees that are already in Bradley Lake Park, and one for Becky to put by the tree she planted at her house for Susie. Then I realized that Becky and I were going to have lunch on Saturday with Gael, one of Susie’s best friends. She and her husband planted a tree for Susie in their yard in Lakewood.

OK, she should have a stone, too. Since all the stones and rocks I want to use must come from Susie Forest tree plantings, what am I going to do? Ruth and her daughter Heather planted four Susie trees at their old house in Bothel and plan to plant more trees here at the new house in Shoreline. Ruth and I went out to the front lawn which is covered with piles of dirt and rock waiting for spring and the new landscaping plan; I started hunting for an appropriate stone. I found one and Ruth said, “That’s about where one of the trees will be planted.” So it’s a legal Susie tree planting site and that makes it a legal stone. Tonight I will paint it.

Tomorrow the joy of the Susie Forest begins!

On Wednesday I tried to add a picture to my blog but it didn’t work, so I here I am at Huppins where I bought my iPad. They are so great and so helpful here. Here we go! Is there a picture? If there is, it’s a picture I took of the painted rock that I put next to my Susie tree in the front yard for Valentine’s Day.

The suitcase is open and the piles around it are beginning to grow. On Saturday I start the first tree trip of the year.

I’ll start the week out at a library co-worker’s home in Shoreline; I’ll wander around their new yard and hear where they may plant Susie trees. At their last home, Ruth and her daughter planted four. (I’m not going to worry about the care the new owners will give those young trees.)

Then on Thursday I’ll be pushing the tree I donated to the Methow Conservancy at the biennial Art and Experience Auction in Seattle. Two years ago I offered a tree for every $5000 donated during the open giving portion of the auction. The great people there gave enough to earn two trees. And a Siberian flowering pear and a northern pin oak were planted along the new Susie Stephens Trail in Winthrop last fall.

Friday I head for Puyallup to stay with my daughter Becky and grandsons Sam and Tim. That afternoon we will be planting the first tree of the year. We will be honoring my first grandson Steven Michael Miller who died at birth in December, 1993. When I planted the first tree in what was to become the Susie Forest, I thought there would be only three trees and I wanted to honor him. Because it was the first tree planted (but not the tree that started the Forest) and because we made a real big deal about the need for street trees with officials, candidates, bicycle and walking groups, and people from the Methow valley, Steven Michael got lost. So he needs a tree that is just for him in Puyallup where he was born and in Bradley Lake Park near his brothers’ trees.

Tomorrow for Valentine’s Day I will put out the first of the painted rocks next to each of the Susie trees in front of my apartment. I “painted” them with permanent markers but they aren’t very bright and I worry that paint won’t last very long out in the weather. Jack suggested that I paint over some of the marker with outdoor acrylics and watch to see how they weather. Even if the paint weathers the permanent ink should last.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

This week’s resolution was #5 – Try to find sponsors for the Susie Forest who would donate one tree a year. My goal was to find three this year and hope to add three more every year. A couple of weeks ago I tried putting out feelers – “Do you know anyone who might be an easy ‘yes’ to my ask? I don’t want to cry when someone says no.” Those feelers haven’t made their way back to me yet.

But yesterday I attended two tree meetings and “WOW!” At the Tree Committee of the Parks Board I asked if anyone could suggest a person, a company, or an organization that I could approach. And I suddenly had two sponsors. I told them that they could use their trees any way they wanted and one will be in the auction for Gonzaga Prep and the other will help out Coaches vs Cancer. So I want to thank Chris Wright and Ken Van Voorhis. And it will be so fun working on their projects.

So I came home with two down and one to go. This morning I called what I thought was my maybe only sure thing. Ed Cushman at C&H Foreign Auto has planted four Susie Forest trees at his business and is thinking of donating a tree for the Women’s and Children’s Free Restaurant auction. I thought he would agree to be a sponsor and HE DID!

In 12 hours I reached my goal. That was too easy. So what do I do now? I want to add more next year, so I don’t want to use my known contacts right away. But I have feelers out there and maybe some will find their way back to me and I will act on them immediately.

So, #5 is done!

On Tu B’Shevat, Sunday, my son Jack and I toasted the trees in the Susie Forest and ate nuts and tree fruits. To top the day off, I also celebrated National Chocolate Cake Day with a huge piece of cake that I didn’t have to share with Jack who hates chocolate.

Last week I worked on a list of New Year’s resolutions for the Susie Forest and came up with 15 really good ones. Now all I have to do is work on them and maybe reporting on them on this blog will help me succeed. This is what I’ve accomplished since Sunday:

#1. Paint hearts on rocks to put by Susie Forest trees.
I learned about this from a friend and decided to paint on the rocks I’ve collected from tree plantings and put them by new trees. I’ll do a few each week.

#3. Move delayed plantings from fall tree list to spring list.
Done. And I’m adding the new potential trees.

#7. Contact overseas planting opportunities.
I heard this week that I will be able to plant a tree at a French chateau during a Friendship Force stay this summer.

Well, that’s what I’ve done so far. One down and fourteen to go.

As I read I come across mentions of the importance of trees in the lives of people. Here’s one from Joyride: Pedaling Toward a Healthier Planet by Mia Birk:

…while I trudge along, dragging my suitcase, each step an effort. Heat-conducting
glass, asphalt and steel, are the only materials in sight; hasn’t Houston heard the
news that trees are a good thing?

Last February I joined a Jewish Sunday school to talk about a Read for Trees program and to learn about Tu B’Shevat. This is a celebration of trees and I found that it could be thought of as the birthday of trees or the New Year of the Trees.

Tu B’Shevat translates as the fifteenth day of the month of Shevat and since the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar this date moves around. This year it comes this Sunday and because the I’m going to celebrate this as New Year’s, I’m working on some tree resolutions. Next week I’ll write about some of them and keep reporting on how I’m doing with them. I’m up to thirteen and I’m not a great resolution keeper; I only made one this year and that was to keep up with this blog. So far so good.

Sunday I’ll have some tree fruits and nuts and wish all the Susie Forest trees a “Happy New Year” and because it’s also National Chocolate Cake Day I will also be celebrating that day in an appropriate way.

On Facebook this morning a city councilman passed on a story about a man whose bicycle was stolen while he was downtown. The thief cut down the tree to get the locked bike. Susie would like a new campaign with the slogan, “Save the Trees, Install Bike Rakes!” The bike would have been at the rack and the tree would still be making the area beautiful if the property owner had installed bike racks.