Tag Archives: City of Trees

Path of Totality (almost)

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Yesterday, a good portion of the United States had the rare opportunity to experience a solar eclipse. Boise, Idaho wasn’t in the “path of totality” for the moon blotting out 100 percent of the sun, but we peaked just shy of it at seeing 99.5 percent of the sun covered.

And what better place to use nature’s pinhole camera than “The City of Trees.” Len and I used protective eclipse eyewear to view the sun, but we also enjoyed seeing hundreds of tiny crescents covering the driveway. We’d read in the newspaper that:

“A pinhole camera is the most simple image-projection technology there is. You can use a thumbtack to punch a hole in card stock, hold that card under a direct light source, and a tiny, exact image of that light source will be projected on the other side of the hole.”

“Sunlight filtering through the branches of trees will create a field of crescent-shaped light on the sidewalk below it. It’s the pinhole camera effect, multiplied naturally hundreds of time underneath each tree. Each gap in the leaves acts as its own pinhole, so you see an image of the eclipse in each of those gaps.”

Where were you during the eclipse on August 21, 2017?

© lauriebuchanan.com

The Hugging Tree

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In relocating last year we learned that Idaho is known as the “Gem State,” and Boise is known as the “City of Trees.”

Ideal for “tree huggers” (and dog lovers and bicycle enthusiasts), one of our recent walks revealed that it’s also perfect for hugging trees!

Hugging tree

In the years I’ve been observing trees, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Notice how the left trunk seems to reach out and hug the trunk on the right.

Lifting you off your feet and whooshing the breath right out of you, it’s been noted on numerous occasions — by friends and family alike — that Len is a world class hugger.

Our son who’s coming for a visit in a few weeks has been put on notice: Be prepared to have the living daylights hugged out of you!

When was your last breath-whooshing hug?

© lauriebuchanan.com

A Bend in the Sidewalk

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While Idaho is considered the “Gem State,” its capital — Boise — is known as the “City of Trees.” An unapologetic tree-hugger, I adore living in one of the historic preservation districts where trees are worked around, instead of cut down. Take this sidewalk for example:

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Talk about forward thinking! From my perspective, this is planning extraordinaire. Where tree roots might potentially cause a sidewalk to buckle, they swerve around the base, giving the roots a wide and healthy berth.

Even where trees sit much further back from the sidewalk, they take root growth into consideration.

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And so it is in life. With forethought, we too can offer healthy growing space to people, places, things, events, ideas, and opportunities.

What have you made room for?

© lauriebuchanan.com