I'm really sad about my Japanese Maple (Old Yeller SPOILER)

[Levin]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

You didn't know you had a Japanese Maple in your yard?

I was shocked when I found it. It was literally in the middle of a throng of holly bushes and behind the trunk of a large pine tree. We moved into the house in January, and I don't know how it got there.

It's not getting too much sunlight.

[Levin]

Originally Posted by landpoke

I thought you people were supposed to be congenitally cheap to the point that sentimentality didn't exist among you? Like the Scots. As such, I'm thinking this story is made up since I'm pretty sure your Pope would commence to chopping and milling and planing and such so as not to waste the lumber for which the tree was created to provide in the first place.

I was wrong; it was a black walnut. And it's use only proves your point: that we're a resourceful people. But being sentimental about a tree and then making use of it once it dies: such things are not mutually exclusive. That's where you go wrong, ol' Poke. You see the use, but not the beauty.

From Pres. Hinckley's talk opening up the Conference Center:

"And now, my brothers and sisters, I would like to tell you about another feature of this wonderful building. If I get a little personal and even a little sentimental, I hope you will forgive me.

I love trees. When I was a boy we lived on a farm in the summer, a fruit farm. Every year at this season we planted trees. I think I have never missed a spring since I was married, except for two or three years when we were absent from the city, that I have not planted trees, at least one or two—fruit trees, shade trees, ornamental trees, and spruce, fir, and pine among the conifers. I love trees.

Well, some 36 years ago I planted a black walnut. It was in a crowded area where it grew straight and tall to get the sunlight. A year ago, for some reason it died. But walnut is a precious furniture wood. I called Brother Ben Banks of the Seventy, who, before giving his full time to the Church, was in the business of hardwood lumber. He brought his two sons, one a bishop and the other recently released as a bishop and who now run the business, to look at the tree. From all they could tell it was solid, good, and beautiful wood. One of them suggested that it would make a pulpit for this hall. The idea excited me. The tree was cut down and then cut into two heavy logs. Then followed the long process of drying, first naturally and then kiln drying. The logs were cut into boards at a sawmill in Salem, Utah. The boards were then taken to Fetzer’s woodworking plant, where expert craftsmen designed and built this magnificent pulpit with that wood.

The end product is beautiful. I wish all of you could examine it closely. It represents superb workmanship, and here I am speaking to you from the tree I grew in my backyard, where my children played and also grew.

It is an emotional thing for me. I have planted another black walnut or two. I will be long gone before they mature. When that day comes and this beautiful pulpit has grown old, perhaps one of them will do to make a replacement. To Elder Banks and his sons, Ben and Bradley, and to the skilled workers who have designed and built this, I offer my profound thanks for making it possible to have a small touch of mine in this great hall where the voices of prophets will go out to all the world in testimony of the Redeemer of mankind."

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.js...____&hideNav=1

[landpoke]

Originally Posted by Levin

That's where you go wrong, ol' Poke. You see the use, but not the beauty.

I see the beauty in a good piece of lumber. Trees, on the other hand, are a waste of my time.

[UteStar]

Originally Posted by landpoke

I see the beauty in a good piece of lumber. Trees, on the other hand, are a waste of my time.

Lets be honest poke, I know you love lumber, but have you even ever seen a living tree? Do trees even exist in 90% of the state?

[Levin]

Originally Posted by landpoke

I see the beauty in a good piece of lumber. Trees, on the other hand, are a waste of my time.

How do you feel about zooplankton and algae?

[creekster]

I still can't believe the actually shoot Ol' Yeller.

[landpoke]

Originally Posted by creekster

I still can't believe the actually shoot Ol' Yeller.

Since the cat's out of the bag: Ol' Yeller got rabies defending the family from a rabid wolf (another reason we as a society would be better served if wolves were eradicated.) He was bound for a horrible death. Shooting was the humane thing to do.

[landpoke]

Originally Posted by UteStar

Lets be honest poke, I know you love lumber, but have you even ever seen a living tree? Do trees even exist in 90% of the state?

Screw you jerk, here's proof that Wyoming is a emerald forest covered loggers' paradise (taken from my office window):

[creekster]

Originally Posted by landpoke

Screw you jerk, here's proof that Wyoming is a emerald forest covered loggers' paradise (taken from my office window):

Your office is in an alfalfa field? So you work downtown, then?

[landpoke]

Originally Posted by creekster

Your office is in an alfalfa field? So you work downtown, then?

I know it's hard to tell, but that's grass hay. Yes, we're out in the country.