The Tennessee Environmental Council had an initiative this year to distribute (for free!) and plant 100,000 native Tennessee trees across the state . . . all on one day. It was the largest community tree planting event in the state’s history. This more than doubles the 46,000 trees they planted for the same event last year.

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Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary was just one of the places involved in the mass planting. I visited there before for a basket weaving class, but I never got to explore their property.

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We planted oaks, plum trees, and shortleaf pines. I was really surprised how small the trees were. The oak and plumb tress just looked like sticks and the pines were only a few inches tall. But, they were all adorable. It did not take much effort to get the trees planted. We just needed to dig about an 8 inch hole deep enough to fully insert the roots.

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There was such a great turn out of volunteers that it didn’t take long to get our trees planted. So, I stopped by to visit some of the owls on the way out. Below is Thoreau the barred owl. Thoreau made his way to Owl’s Hill after being hit by a car and losing most of his right wing. Poor baby. He was, however, very wise and told me precisely how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. I’ll never tell.

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Now, for your enjoyment (because reading about trees is kind of boring) I give you some bad tree jokes:

Do you want a brief explanation of an acorn?
In a nutshell, it’s an oak tree.

What is a tree’s favorite shape?
A treeangle.

Why did the pine tree get in trouble?
Because it was being knotty.

I apologize for all of those.