Dendrochronology, for those of you who’ve never heard of an increment borer, is “the science of dating events and variations in environment in former periods by comparative study of growth rings in trees and aged wood,” or so says Webster’s. I like trees. A lot. I grew up in dry, inland California, where we don’t have too many trees, so it’s not a childhood memory kind of thing, and I also like milled timber, so it’s probably not a spiritual thing. I think what I really like about trees is that they’re so slow compared to the rest of life. Woody plants are the oldest living things on earth (NOTE: I just googled “oldest living thing” expecting to find info about the friendly bristlecone pine, only to discover that according to the High Country News (hi Dan!) it’s actually a freaking creosote bush outside of Barstow – 11,700 years old. Whatev. If it has bark…). We humans are conceived, are born, grow, whither, and die in the time it takes some trees just to get out of their ancestors’ shadows. And if you chop one down, it still probably isn’t dead – it’ll root- or stump-sprout and just keep on truckin’. But this blog isn’t really about trees.

Except when important tree related things are going on. Like right now the magnolias are in bloom (here in SF, that is). I walked under one near Stanyan and Haight on Saturday, and it smelled delicious. Fun facts about magnolias? The magnolia family is one of the most primitive woody plant families, as indicated by the fact that the flowers do not have sepals (the green leafy segments that protect most buds before they bloom). And magnolias are pollinated by beetles, so that delicious smell? Yeah, it’s for beetles. Not for you. Last but not least, my favorite east coast tree, the tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera), is actually in the magnolia family (Magnoliaceae), despite having little tiny flowers that no one gets to smell because they’re too high up in the canopy.

Phew. So, this is my first post in my third attempt at having a blog. Sometimes it will be funny. Often (apparently) it will have fun info about trees (send questions!) Rarely, I hope, will it be irritatingly self-deprecating, whiny, or bitter. But the year is young and the blog is new. At least I promise my next post will have very little to do with trees.

So let’s make this quick – New Year’s resolutions (actually, I didn’t really make any. But if I did…):
(1) Say “like” less
(2) See above comment about blog content, apply to life
(3) Climb a 5.10
(4) Play the fiddle breaks in Wagon Wheel (well)
(5) Bike to work at least once a week (more when it’s dry, less when it’s rainy)
(6) Roll over last year’s ‘under-achieved’ resolutions (and acknowledge those I achieved)
(7) Enjoy the good parts, weather the crappy
(8) Re-read all the science books I bought in 2005 and actually retain some of the information in them
(9) Appreciate my (albeit brief) foray into the world of grown-up working life.
(10) Rock on.