let her know the why and what

I'm talking to the adopted orphan
about Parenting.
I am connected to my Father's memory
of being in the custody of his Father; his sister
with his Mother; being farmed out to work
for his dinner; and laying at night dreaming of
what His family would be. Having meals
daily, a dog, movies...
Having meals. When they hadn't had
meat for a year -- someone found an old
dead opposum which they cooked for dinner,
and it tasted so bad they had to throw it in the outhouse.

I went to meet the old woman who had taken him in, near
Pendleton I met with 'Pearl'. She recalled in the sunlight:
"George Noble, I remember him. He'd work all day for a
piece of gum."

I saw another element of my Father that day... the hard working
streek of physicality was it's own reward.

I hope to volunteer for the following
efforts. (Earth in the Balance by Al Gore)
call me if you are interested in this training,
and, participating. Twice hands make for light work.

Indiana Community Tree Stewards in Marion County and the Indiana Urban Forest Council
A call for help!
Reference City Project for the Lower Midwest

Indianapolis along with the IDNR, Urban Forestry, and the USDA Forest Service is working on a Reference City Project. This project will determine the climate zones of specific species of trees so that when assessing economic and ecologic values, they will be accurate to the Lower Midwest region of which is southern and central Indiana is part of. With this information communities can plan to plant strategically to reap the most benefits and to get the most from those budgeted dollars.

This is a very comprehensive project with many details and with most of the data being collected by Davey Resource Group this past summer and fall. Now, we are in the aging the trees phase. The project cannot go further without the aging of the trees. INDY Parks had hoped to be able to complete this portion of the project, but, due to staff limitations, they cannot do it alone.

We need your help.

Paul Pinco, INDY City Forester, is seeking pairs of volunteers to count the tree rings of pre-identified stumps throughout Indianapolis by mid January. The time line is an issue, but the US Forest Service needs the data so that Dr. Greg McPherson can run it, which is an extensive, time consuming task.

When completed, states, cities and towns in the Lower Midwest Climate Zone will be able to use their street tree inventory reports to do an analysis with the free program Stratum which is in the i-Tree Suite (see Stratum link at: http://www.itreetools.org/street_trees/introduction_step1.html )
The analysis will give economic and ecological values based on particular species, size of trees, and the region where they grow. That means that the analysis will not be a general average or statistic. It will be concrete information based on our region. This can have implications for budgets for urban forestry, watershed health, air quality issues, and planting strategically etc.

We need your help to:

Come to a training session where Paul will give directions on counting rings, locations,etc. The training session will be December 7th at 10:00 am at the CUF Office, plan for about 1 hour.
Form a pair to travel to sites to count the rings on the pre identified stumps.
Do all this by mid January.
In addition, the CUF Program is going to do a sample statewide tree inventory and input the data into Stratum (Lower Midwest zone) to get a clearer perspective on the states urban tree population, its values in dollars, and its values environmentally as far as water quality, air quality, pollution uptake etc. (i.e. how much particulate matter does a hackberry collect? How much does it cost to plant and maintain this tree at year 1, 5, 10 20, 40 and on) ? What is the value based on how much to plant and maintain through the years as opposed to the benefits generated for those years?) The end result is a dollar value based on those questions and more---how much does it cost? How much does it give us back in dollars based on environmental and economic benefits? What is the difference between the two? The number is------!

The CUF program has put dollars into this project along with the City of Indianapolis and the Forest Service. The USFS hopes to, in time, do these climate projects in the designated zones all over the nation. It is significant that Indianapolis has committed dollars because they know the importance of this project, its value to INDY, and the lower Midwest area. You can check out the Stratum website to see what Reference Cities are in progress. Minneapolis, MN was the first reference city and is operating off the Midwest Community Tree Guide that was produced as part of their project. A fact sheet on the Minneapolis project can be found at: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/ss/05/uf/trees_payus_back.pdf

Please contact me by Dec. 6 if you can volunteer for this project. There are 150 stumps to age.

I hope you can help. It is important. April and I will be counting rings as well!


PAM

April Murray-Clayton
Volunteer Coordinator
Community & Urban Forestry Office
IDNR, Division of Forestry
6515 E. 82nd Street, Suite 204 Indianapolis, IN 46250-1562
Phone: 317-915-9390
Fax: 317-915-9392
amurray-clayton@dnr.IN.gov



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Louks, Pam
Sent: Mon 12/4/2006 8:06 AM
To: Murray-Clayton, April
Subject: RE: tree steward and opportunity to volunteer


April. Please let her know why and what. Thanks.

Pamela C. Louks

Community & Urban Forestry Coordinator
Indiana DNR, Division of Forestry
6515 E. 82nd Street, Ste 204 Indianapolis, IN 46250
PH-317-915-9390
FAX-317-915-9392
E-mail: plouks@dnr.IN.gov

website (s). IDNR, Division of Forestry: www.in.gov/dnr/forestry
Indiana Urban Forest Council-the urban forestry umbrella non-profit in Indiana: http://www.iufc.org/