Spring & Summer are the perfect time to celebrate the rebirth of Earth's Beauty & Bounty. Flowers gave beauty & inspiration to mankind's basic struggle to live & to populate & to protect his home-base, The Earth. The Lord God took man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & to keep it...Genesis 2:15.
Spring often means it is time for you & your pet to explore the great outdoors. But before you & your furry best friend stop & smell the spring flowers, make sure they are not toxic. If you suspect your pet has ingested or been in contact with the plants below, call Pet Poison Helpline ASAP & then contact your veterinary team to keep them updated on the situation.
See Toxic & Non-Toxic Plant List - Dogs https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/dogs-plant-list
Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List - Cats https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/cats-plant-list
These services provide immediate expert advice, and include consultation with your veterinarian if needed. Follow-up of the case is also included, if needed.
Animal Poison Control Center (ASPCA): 888-426-4435
Pet Poison Helpline: 855-764-7661s.
Spring often means it is time for you & your pet to explore the great outdoors. But before you & your furry best friend stop & smell the spring flowers, make sure they are not toxic. If you suspect your pet has ingested or been in contact with the plants below, call Pet Poison Helpline ASAP & then contact your veterinary team to keep them updated on the situation.
See Toxic & Non-Toxic Plant List - Dogs https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/dogs-plant-list
Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List - Cats https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/cats-plant-list
These services provide immediate expert advice, and include consultation with your veterinarian if needed. Follow-up of the case is also included, if needed.
Animal Poison Control Center (ASPCA): 888-426-4435
Pet Poison Helpline: 855-764-7661
Spring often means it is time for you & your pet to explore the great outdoors. But before you & your furry best friend stop & smell the spring flowers, make sure they are not toxic. If you suspect your pet has ingested or been in contact with the plants below, call Pet Poison Helpline ASAP & then contact your veterinary team to keep them updated on the situation.
See Toxic & Non-Toxic Plant List - Dogs https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/dogs-plant-list
Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List - Cats https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/cats-plant-list
These services provide immediate expert advice, and include consultation with your veterinarian if needed. Follow-up of the case is also included, if needed.
Animal Poison Control Center (ASPCA): 888-426-4435
Pet Poison Helpline: 855-764-7661
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Spring often means it is time for you & your pet to explore the great outdoors. But before you & your furry best friend stop & smell the spring flowers, make sure they are not toxic. If you suspect your pet has ingested or been in contact with the plants below, call Pet Poison Helpline ASAP & then contact your veterinary team to keep them updated on the situation.
See Toxic & Non-Toxic Plant List - Dogs https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/dogs-plant-list
Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List - Cats https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/cats-plant-list
These services provide immediate expert advice, and include consultation with your veterinarian if needed. Follow-up of the case is also included, if needed.
Animal Poison Control Center (ASPCA): 888-426-4435
Pet Poison Helpline: 855-764-7661
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Spring often means it is time for you & your pet to explore the great outdoors. But before you & your furry best friend stop & smell the spring flowers, make sure they are not toxic. If you suspect your pet has ingested or been in contact with the plants below, call Pet Poison Helpline ASAP & then contact your veterinary team to keep them updated on the situation.
See Toxic & Non-Toxic Plant List - Dogs https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/dogs-plant-list
Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List - Cats https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/cats-plant-list
These services provide immediate expert advice, and include consultation with your veterinarian if needed. Follow-up of the case is also included, if needed.
Animal Poison Control Center (ASPCA): 888-426-4435
Pet Poison Helpline: 855-764-7661
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Spring & Summer are the perfect time to celebrate the rebirth of Earth's Beauty & Bounty. Flowers gave beauty & inspiration to mankind's basic struggle to live & to populate & to protect his home-base, The Earth. Holding on to The Sweet Divine - The Lord God took man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & to keep it...Genesis 2:15.
.jpg)
Spring often means it is time for you & your pet to explore the great outdoors. But before you & your furry best friend stop & smell the spring flowers, make sure they are not toxic. If you suspect your pet has ingested or been in contact with the plants below, call Pet Poison Helpline ASAP & then contact your veterinary team to keep them updated on the situation.
See Toxic & Non-Toxic Plant List - Dogs https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/dogs-plant-list
Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List - Cats https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/cats-plant-list
These services provide immediate expert advice, and include consultation with your veterinarian if needed. Follow-up of the case is also included, if needed.
Animal Poison Control Center (ASPCA): 888-426-4435
Pet Poison Helpline: 855-764-7661
%2BAllegory%2Bof%2Bthe%2BSeasons%2BSpring.jpg)
The Liberty Tree in Boston, Massachusetts
On August 14, 1765, a defiant group of American colonists rallied beneath the mighty boughs of a century-old elm tree to protest the enactment of the highly unpopular Stamp Act. The young rebels, who called themselves the Sons of Liberty, decorated the tree with banners, lanterns & effigies of the British stamp master & prime minister.
Over the next decade, patriots regularly gathered around the tree for meetings, speeches & celebrations until British soldiers & Loyalists under siege in Boston chopped it into firewood during the summer of 1775. The Liberty Tree became such a powerful patriotic symbol that towns throughout the colonies followed Boston’s lead in designating their own versions.
The Liberty Tree was an elm that was planted in 1646 about one block east of the Boston Common. Prior to the American Revolution, angry dissenters of British rule & taxation, used the tree to hang effigies of men who supported the hated Stamp Act & also hung lanterns on its branches to symbolize unity.
As news of the Liberty Tree spread, local patriots in all 13 colonies formed their own patriotic liberty groups & chose a large tree or erected a pole to be used as a meeting place. During the siege of Boston in August 1775, Loyalists cut the original tree down & used it for firewood.
This act further united the livid patriotic colonists & flags with the Liberty Tree emblem were often displayed at the battles of the American Revolution. The Liberty Tree became a symbol for liberty & resistance to tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.”
After England’s King James II assumed the throne, he sought to revoke the royal charter issued to Connecticut in 1662 by his predecessor & late brother, King Charles II. The colonists of Connecticut, however, had no desire to turn over the document & relinquish the limited autonomy that it granted.
According to legend, the king’s royal governor, Sir Edmund Andros, met with colonial leaders in a Hartford meeting house soon after his arrival in 1687. After the governor demanded the charter, the candles in the room suddenly blew out. When light was restored, the parchment had vanished. Captain Joseph Wadsworth supposedly squirreled the document away in the trunk of a nearby white oak tree. The charter remained in colonial custody & was used to govern Connecticut until 1818. The centuries-old “Charter Oak,” which blew down in a storm in 1856, remains a treasured state symbol.
The 9/11 Survivor Tree in New York City
Weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, recovery workers at Ground Zero discovered a lone sign of life amid the rubble of the World Trade Center—a Callery pear tree, crushed & scorched, yet somehow still alive. The New York City Parks Department transplanted an eight-foot stump of the severely damaged tree to a Bronx nursery & slowly nursed it back to health. The “Survivor Tree” was replanted at the site in 2010 & is now part of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum as a symbol of survival & resilience.
How Washington, D.C. Got Its Japanese Cherry Trees
The flowering of the cherry trees, living symbols of peace between the United States & Japan, lining the Tidal Basin is an annual rite of spring in Washington, D.C. The first shipment of Japanese cherry trees that arrived in 1910 was infected with insects & parasitic worms & ordered destroyed by President William Taft. The second shipment of more than 3,000 cherry trees, composed of a dozen varieties gifted by Tokyo, arrived in March 1912 in perfect condition & were planted on the parkland reclaimed from the Potomac River’s mud flats.
In the fall of 1861, the children of enslaved people who had escaped to the refuge of Union-held Fort Monroe gathered underneath the sprawling canopy of a southern live oak to listen to free African American Mary Smith Peake as she began to teach them how to read & write. Previously, enslaved people had been forbidden an education under Virginia law. Underneath the same oak tree, now on the grounds of Hampton University, African Americans congregated in 1863 to listen to the first reading in the South of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln.
Why ‘Liberty Trees’ Became an Obsession After the Revolutionary War
At first, colonists used trees as meeting places to protest & plan resistance, then their significance grrew /
History tells us that when the Marquis de Lafayette visited the United States in 1824 & 1825, there was a can’t-miss destination on his itinerary. Now gnarled with age, the beloved general would receive a hero’s welcome as he crisscrossed the United States he had helped create. It was a farewell tour & a nod to a country that was now 50 years old. And the Marquis knew exactly what he wanted to see in Boston—a tree stump.
It wasn’t just any tree: It was a potent symbol of freedom that had special significance for those who participated in the rebellion. Boston’s Liberty Tree was just one of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, all over the 13 colonies. And they weren’t just famous in the new United States: The symbolic plants were known worldwide.
Even as a stump, the place where Boston’s Liberty Tree had once stood held special significance. “The world should never forget the spot where once stood the Liberty Tree so famous in your annals,” said Lafayette. Three cheers rang out as his carriage passed the place where the tree had once stood.
How the Sons of Liberty Helped Ignite the Revolution
In the 18th century, people often used natural landmarks like trees as meeting places, & trees were important points of reference. They also held symbolic power: As historian Alfred R. Young notes, English lore contains plenty of stories of trees tied to political events, & “trees in general were much venerated by colonists.”
It makes sense, then, that trees took on special importance when those colonists started to rebel. In 1765, a group of nine patriots who called themselves the Loyal Nine—a precursor of the Sons of Liberty—began to plan resistance to the Stamp Act.
The hated law, which was administered by a public official named Andrew Oliver, required colonists to pay taxes on everything from newspapers to playing cards. It was the first tax ever levied on the colonies, & it felt like an affront to businessmen like the Loyal Nine. In secret, they planned a series of protests that would become the first public acts of resistance to the English Crown.
Angry Colonists Meeting Around An Elm Tree in Boston, Massachusetts
They chose an old elm tree at the corner of what is now Essex & Washington Streets as the site of their first protest. On August 14, 1765, they hung an effigy of Oliver on the tree along with other symbols of the Stamp Act. As a mob grew, they beheaded & burned the symbol before heading to Oliver’s house. A few weeks later, a copper plate appeared on the tree, declaring it the “Tree of Liberty.”
Angry colonists now had a voice—& a symbol. They began to meet regularly beneath the tree, & its fame quickly spread to other colonies. Soon, cities as far as Rhode Island & Maryland had named their own liberty trees.
The trees had cousins: Liberty poles. They were less decorative than trees, but they had a similar function. Erected all over the rebellious colonies, the mast-like poles were places to post broadsides about the Crown’s tyranny & to gather for protests, speeches & political meetings.
“A Liberty Pole had no roots,” writes historian David Hackett Fischer. “It could be constructed anywhere on the spur of the moment & in many different sizes.” Some were even taller than colonial cities’ largest buildings, Fischer writes, & they were often the sites of riots & rivalries over who could tear down the mast & who could erect another.
As symbols of the rebellion, plenty was at stake when it came to these trees & poles. The colonial government & the British military knew it, & used it to their advantage. In 1775, for example, British soldiers punished Thomas Ditson, a farmer who had tried to purchase a musket from a soldier, by stripping him down, tarring & feathering him, & forcing him to parade past the Liberty Tree wearing a sign that read, in part, “American Liberty (or Democracy) exemplified in a Villain.”
By that time, liberty trees were so well known that they had become landmarks in & of themselves. But later in 1775, the beloved Boston elm tree, which was nearly 130 years old, paid the price for its fame when a group of loyalists & British soldiers tore it down.
The loyalists “made a furious attack on it,” reported a local paper. “After a long spell of groaning, swearing, & foaming, with malice diabolical they cut down a tree because it bore the name of ‘Liberty.’” The tree provided 14 cords of wood that were used to heat buildings used by the army.
Defiant to the end, the colonists simply renamed the tree “Liberty Stump,” erected a pole there, & continued to revere it. Other liberty trees met with happier fates & lasted well into the 20th century; New York’s was only cut down in 1999, & a tree in Annapolis is being restored using grafting & the cultivation of new seedlings.
Even after the revolution, liberty trees remained a potent symbol of the power of rebellion & public protest. When revolution broke out in France in 1789, revolutionaries began to name & plant their own liberty trees, & the custom also sprang up in Italy & Germany.
What started as a simple meeting place had branched into a tradition as inspiring as it was famous.
Arbor Day is a secular day of observance in which individuals & groups are encouraged to plant trees. Today, many countries observe such a holiday. Though usually observed in the spring, the date varies, depending on climate & suitable planting season.
The First Arbor Day
The Spanish village of Mondoñedo held the 1st documented arbor plantation festival in the world organized & promoted by its mayor in 1569. The place remains as Alameda de los Remedios & it is still planted with lime & horse-chestnut trees.
Located at the entrance to the city at the foot of the Remedios Sanctuary, it has the peculiarity of being one of the oldest in Spain, where the 1st Tree Festival in Spain was celebrated on February 4, 1569. There is a monolith that commemorates this unique celebration in one of its gardens. Today a humble granite marker & a bronze plate recall the event.
Alameda de los Remedios
Centuries later the small Spanish village of Villanueva de la Sierra held the 1st modern Arbor Day, an initiative launched in 1805 by the local priest with the enthusiastic support of the entire population.
Madrid Professor Miguel Herrero Uceda writes: "While Napoleon was ravaging Europe with his ambition, in this village in the Sierra de Gata lived a priest, don Juan Abern Samtrés, who...convinced of the importance of trees for health, hygiene, decoration, nature, environment & customs, decided to plant trees in a festive air. The festival began on Carnival Tuesday with the ringing of 2 bells of the church... After the Mass, & coated with church ornaments, don Juan, accompanied by other clergies, teachers & a large number of neighbors, planted the 1st tree, a poplar, in the place known as Valley of the Ejido. Tree planting continued by Arroyada & Fuente de la Mora. Afterwards, there was a feast, & ...dance. The party & plantations lasted 3 days. He drafted a manifesto in defence of the trees that was sent to surrounding towns to spread the love & respect for nature, & also he advised them to make tree plantations in their localities."
The 1st American Arbor Day originated in Nebraska by J. Sterling Morton. On April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted in Nebraska. Julius Sterling Morton (1832–1902) was a Nebraska newspaper editor & politician who served as President Grover Cleveland's secretary of agriculture. He founded the nation's Arbor Day in 1872. His son, Joy Morton, founder of the Morton Salt Company, also created the 1,700 acre Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago which now has over 4,000 different types of trees, shrubs, & other woody plants.
Dr. Birdsey Grant Northrop (1817-1898)
A decade later, Dr. Birdsey Grant Northrop (1817-1898) of Kent, Connecticut, was largely responsible for popularizing the idea across the globe. An avid proponent of trees in the community landscape, he brought attention to Arbor Day in the world community during a visit to Japan in 1883 where he delivered a village improvement speech, stressed the importance of trees and promoted Arbor Day to the Japanese. He also delivered his Arbor Day message to Europe, Canada, and Australia. Dr. Northrop, a theologian by degree from Yale and advocate for better education and public life, authored 70 works in 159 publications in 2 languages on education, the importance of forestry, rural improvement, and town planning.
In 1883, the American Forestry Association made Dr. Northrop the Chairman of the committee to campaign for Arbor Day nationwide.
Major Israel McCreight (1865-1958)
Beginning in 1906, Major Israel McCreight (1865-1958) of DuBois, Pennsylvania, argued that President Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation speeches were limited to businessmen in the lumber industry & recommended a campaign of youth education plus a national policy on conservation education. McCreight urged Roosevelt to make a public statement to school children about trees & the destruction of American forests.
Conservationist Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the United States Forest Service, embraced McCreight’s recommendations & asked the President to speak to the public school children of the United States about conservation. On April 15, 1907, Roosevelt issued an "Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States" about the importance of trees & that forestry deserves to be taught in U.S. schools. Pinchot wrote McCreight, "we shall all be indebted to you for having made the suggestion."
School Children Planting Trees
President Theodore Roosevelt, delivered the "Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States" on April 15, 1907. Here is an excerpt: "...A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless; forests which are so used that they can not renew themselves will soon vanish, & with them all their benefits....When you help to preserve our forests or plant new ones you are acting the part of good citizens. The value of forestry deserves, therefore, to be taught in the schools, which aim to make good citizens of you. If your Arbor Day exercises help you to realize what benefits each one of you receives from the forests, & how by your assistance these benefits may continue, they will serve a good end."
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