I'm at Lied Lodge, a conference center at Arbor Day Farms, part of The National Arbor Day Foundation...way cool place to find out a lot about trees, J. Sterling Morgan (who founded Arbor Day and whose white mansion is visible out of our conference room window), biomass energy, and Nebraska marble (sod). I'm co-facilitating a National Writing Project Professional Writing and Technology Writing Retreat (gesundheit), and I love that we're saving trees by using technology. Borders painted midway up the main hall walls consist of quotations about trees by writers like Rabindranath Tagore ("Trees are Earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven"). Each room contains three to four small gray wastebaskets labeled "Aluminum Only," "Glass Only," "Paper Only," and "Trash Only." When someone asked for the "Plastic Only" wastebasket, we found out that the rugs are made out of recycled plastic.
I went out to the hazel trees and touched a clump of nuts that fell off into my hand. The tree's flower turns into five or six tightly bonded hazel nuts. And since 90% of hazel nuts are imported, finding ways to grow them here is good news for some farmers.
OK, I'm tired. And my writing feels tired. Time for coffee.
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