We need trees more than birds do

Coral Gables: the City Beautiful. What's the difference between Coral Gables and the rest of us? Trees. The whole place is like the Brazilian rain forest. Yes, there are million zillion dollar homes crouching behind those tree trunks and leafy branches but it's the trees, stupid.

When we moved into our place the first thing we did was plant trees- well, actually, the first thing we did was plant selected seeds of live oaks and gumbo limbo and satin leafs into big old baked bean cans and, bless the South Florida climate, in a year or two they had left their cans behind.

But the point is, you can sit on a crate, you can eat off a piece of plywood (cover with a clean, bright cloth!) and later on you can buy your fancy Italian leather couch and table that seats eight in an afternoon but you can't wake up one morning and say I'm going to be surrounded by leafy branching trees this evening; where's my wallet! It doesn't work like that. (Well, the very rich and impatient can truck in instant trees complete with scaffolding and irrigation and good luck with that.) But the Brazilian rain forest or the gentle beech woods of southern England or just your shady corner were not built in a day - though I suppose our Creationist friends would beg to differ.