got canceled so they came back to La Manzanilla. They told me that they were
taping the windows of the airport and cutting all the palm trees back as much
as possible to give them less wind resistance and the best chance of survival
in the high winds of the hurricane. In preparing for the hurricane it never
occurred to me to give the palm tree out back of the office a serious hair
cut to better its odds of survival.
Now in hind sight, seeing all the trees that got knocked over by the
hurricane, one of the best things that people could have done would have
been to trim them back to better their odds of survival. Big beautiful
trees take many years to grow, they are one of the things that make
La Manzanilla beautiful and the more we have the better. We are the
care takers, perhaps its time we took more care.
It hurt my life force to see some of the old trees that got destroyed.
One in particular was this huge tree (must have been 100 years old)
located on Maria Elba (see map below) she was a beautiful soul that
had thousands of gorgeous flowers that were so out of this world fragrant
that I would stop and pick one to take with me to smell almost every
time I drove by.
Today I watched as they cut her up to be hauled away. The inside of the
tree was a beautiful rose color, really pretty. I asked the guys what kind
of tree it was and unfortunately I can't correctly repeat the name at the
moment. I asked if it was a good wood for making furniture? They said yes,
that it was a good hard wood and very beautiful. I wondered why they
were not cutting it into longer sections, I asked if they were taking it to
the wood shop? They said no, to the dump and asked me if I wanted
it? I said no, but thinking back now I wish I would have said yes.
If I couldn't get furniture made out of it then perhaps smaller items
like bowls or something.
Anyway this morning when I woke up I was thinking about that tree and
thought to myself, what the hell? There are people willing to risk
jail to do illegal logging and here we are throwing away perfectly
good beautiful wood! That tree is a resource and one that the world is
running out of! Someone could have made art out of that wood and sold
it with a photo and or a story of the tree the art came from. I bet the
wood smells good too. Just seems like a lost opportunity to me, and perhaps
even more, a lack of respect for something which gave so much pleasure to
so many for so many years.
Those lessons, they happen every day.
P.S.
Another idea would be to save some of the wood to sell to campers
who want bonfires on the beach. Sure would be better than them
going into the Lagoon to steal wood and a great little business
for someone. Free Inventory!
