tree huggin'

earlier in the day on saturday, before we got all gussied up in 1920s gear, we did a little lovin' on mother nature.

it started a couple of months back when evan attended a homes association meeting in our neighborhood.  at the meeting he agreed to take the lead on a pilot program sponsored by the kansas city parks & rec department and a group called the heartland tree alliance.  the project?  help plant 500 trees in 4 different neighborhood in an effort to keep the tree-lined streets of kansas city's urban area alive and thriving for years to come.  if the project was successful it would be implemented in dozens of other neighborhoods with 1,000's of trees.

the cause was a total no brainer.  all the mature trees in our 'hood are one of the reasons people love this part of town so much.  add the fact that mature trees can increase property values by 15% - 20% and cut down on energy costs in the hotter-than-hell summer months and well there really are no downsides to the idea.

since all the trees were being donated by the sponsoring groups, we really just needed to collect names of interested homeowners and secure a front yard to host the ceremonial kickoff.  taking a 21st century approach to helping our early 20th century neighborhood, evan built a website for our neighbors to submit their addresses and requests.  it was a simple website but really simplified the process.

my hubs, so dreamy and techie.

on our particular weekend, with the help of some other awesome neighbors and some partnering volunteers, we secured just over 100 trees for interested homeowners and hosted the demo at club 26E.  we had the the perfect spring morning for the occasion, Roasterie coffee & Lamar's donuts to get everyone going. once complete, we celebrated with a generous donation from one of our favorite neighborhood spots, Pizza 51...and we may have also offered up some boulevard boss tom's golden bock that we had just put on tap.  hey - it's the weekend and we're being green and all.

"beer at noon is required" says mother earth and well, mother knows best.

i love the idea of this program and i of course love our two new charlie brown trees, but i think my favorite part is knowing that 50 years from now, alex can come back to our trees and know she was here when they were "born".  i'm sure it will be a cool thing to remember when she gets older and it will be a distinct part of the neighborhood that we helped create as someone did for us over 100 years ago too.