Again, Trees

Trees are wondrous things, and I often take them for granted. Caught up in my daily preoccupations, I often rush by them without giving them a second glance, focused as I am on matters at hand, most of which, truth be known, I can't do very much about.

I often drive along with my left arm hanging out the open car window, and I have acquired quite a prominent farmer's tan that way. It's particularly dark this year, considering all the rambling I've done in search of fodder for this column and the photos to accompany them. One day, oblivious to the sun's intensity, and forgetting the weather forecaster's warning that the ultraviolet factor was dangerously high that day, the tender skin on my arm just above the elbow was burned and required several applications of that blessedly soothing concoction known as aloe gel. Despite my sunburn, it was along one stretch of Route 5 in Saco that I was reminded that afternoon of what a blessing trees are, especially on hot cloudless days.

From the intersection of routes 5 and 35 in Dayton to the Waterboro town line several miles west, the woods alternately deepen and thin on either side of the road. My arm becomes a sensing device of sorts as it picks up the changes in temperature that occur between the wooded areas and sections where the tree line is farther back from the road and more open sky appears. Along one particularly dense wooded stretch, the temperature dropped by a good 10 degrees, and my arm was actually chilled. Then, when the tree canopy opened up again to allow the sun through, it got decidedly warmer. I tested the theory all the way to Waterboro where the road widens and the trees no longer join together closely enough over the road to alter the temperature until the turnoff to Shaker Hill on route 202 in Alfred.

The coolness that trees impart is due to several factors beyond their ability to provide us with shade. Trees are natural air conditioners that operate exclusively on solar power to chill the air around us and keep it chilled for long periods of time. This is where water, good old H-Two-0, comes into play, much as it does inside an electrically-powered air conditioner. Trees take in hundreds of gallons of water from the soil each day through their roots. This water travels to every part of the tree to keep it hydrated and to assist with the production of food in that amazing process known as photosynthesis.


Water molecules are composed of hydrogen and oxygen. In a complex process, the sun stimulates the hydrogen molecules that are utilized during the food production process, while the oxygen is given off through the leaves. Any excess water not used during the production of the sugars necessary to a tree's survival is also released in yet another process known as transpiration, which closely resembles what we call perspiration, or the process by which our own bodies produce water, or sweat, to keep us cool. So not only do trees intercept the sun's damaging rays, they also keep us cool with the water they release into the air around them. This cooling ability increases exponentially depending upon the number of trees in any given area. Thus, the denser the forest, the chillier it will be, because the air around and between the trees is saturated with cool water.

Trees also do not retain heat in the general sense. Thus, once the sun sets, they and the air around them cool almost immediately as opposed to the asphalt and concrete that weave their way through cities and towns and that store the heat long after sundown. This is a welcome effect during the winter, but it quickly becomes the bane of city dwellers during the hottest times of the year, especially in places where there is little or no vegetation.

The next time you are out of an evening, notice how much cooler it is in the more wooded areas as opposed to the city streets. Take note of the decided chill in the air in places where the treetops join hands, if you will, to do what they were designed to do which is to naturally and efficiently keep us cool and refreshed and all without our having to flip a single switch.


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Summer Haze

During summer's warmer days, I gaze out at the woods around me as through a fog. Heat, particularly with high humidity and dew point, is tangible, settling on every growing thing like a veil. Some days, it's almost as though each leaf droops and sags beneath the burden, much as I do, as we both long for relief in the form of rain or a more northerly breeze. And when it comes, we rejoice together, they, lifting their faces once more toward the sun, and I lifting my hands, closing my eyes, and allowing the blessed relief to wash over me.

Even as the long hot summer days linger, I know of what they foretell. More and more, I'm hearing the sound of chainsaws as braver souls nearby begin work on their woodpiles even as the sun's merciless rays bear down upon them. For this is the best time to cut wood and leave it to dry while the days are still long, the heat intense, and the wind warm. More than halfway now through July, more than half of yet another year is behind us, and even these warm uncomfortable days do not linger quite as long as the earth slowly begins its downward tilt.

Summers are warmer, because the sun hits the surface of the earth in the Northern hemisphere more directly and for a longer period of time during each 24-hour period. Conversely, it's colder in the winter because the same rays strike the earth at a shorter more extreme angle, and the hours of daylight are fewer. None of this happens as a result of the earth's position in the galaxy but because its axis, which is relatively perpendicular during the warmer months, dips by about 23.5 degrees, orienting different parts of the earth toward the sun. After the Summer Solstice, or the first day of summer in the north, the earth gradually moves in its orbit in a counterclockwise path that eventually orients the southern hemisphere toward the sun, with a gradual progression toward an eastern orientation, or Winter Solstice, when all of North America and most of South America are experiencing winter.

In areas that experience the four seasons distinctly, it sometimes seems that one might last longer than another or that their progression from year to year isn't consistent, but that's not the case at all. Weather events have a lot to do with our perception of the length of the seasons, while, behind the scenes, all is progressing according to nature's schedule, one over which we have absolutely no control.

So though these warm days are draining and often uncomfortable, they never last forever, and I set my sights on the respites that nature provides us here in the north that other parts of the country aren't privy to. At some point, the wind always shifts from south to north, the haze clears and once again, each leaf and twig is visible in the sharp crisp light. It's a yearly progression, with each season unfolding from the preceding one, and each ending as imperceptibly as it began, their endings and beginnings lost beneath this endless canopy of trees and sky.


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