I am not suggesting that one can discharge all one’s obligations towards society by means of a private re-afforestation scheme. Still, it might not be a bad idea, every time you commit an antisocial act, to make a note of it in your diary, and then, at the appropriate season, push an acorn into the ground.
— George Orwell, “A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray“
We planted a new dwarf pear tree earlier this week. But yesterday, dealing with suburban D.C. traffic, I called down curses, maledictions and unholy vilifications upon at least several dozen drivers directly, and I may have fantasized about murder, both retail and wholesale. I suppose this puts my tree-per-sin account deeply into the red. Luckily, autumn weather is here, and the acorns are falling like wooden raindrops, or else I’d go broke trying to balance the books. Well, I’ve always wanted to live in a forest. Just call me Damian Oaktree, distant cousin to Johnny Appleseed. Speaking of whom, I wonder what he was atoning for?