Trees!

Holiday gift cards - for clients who don't do snow images for a summer Christmas. environmentally friendly too - no ink, and earning treebucks.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago – the next best time is now”

I love trees. Hang on, let me qualify that – I love most trees. I hated the ancient apple tree in my garden in America that produced a million wormy sour apples every year. The apples fell to the ground and attracted two million wasps – that tree I mentally consigned to tree hell. Oh yeah, I hate eucalyptus and black wattle trees that some idiot introduced to South Africa eons ago. Now they thrive and suck much needed water from the ground and crowd out indigenous species. Those trees need to emigrate back to Australia!

I love indigenous trees. They have such wonderfully evocative names: Tamboti,  Baobab, Jackalberry, Umbrella Thorn, Bushwillow, Buffalothorn, Mopani, Paperbark, Fevertree, Sausagetree,  Stinkwood, Sneezewood, Yellowwood – beautiful trees in a beautiful country.

I love climbing trees. I spent quite a lot of my childhood in trees and wish my kids had a tree to climb and build a treehouse in. I Want a grown up treehouse one day – yes, they do exist – I have the book! I have been known to totally embarrass my children by shinning up a suitable tree to look at the world from a different view-point.

I like tree people too! At the Yebo Gogga event last year, we met Sean Hide of Grow-A-Tree fame. We already owned a Grow-A-Tree White Stinkwood which had already reached a nice height of 30cm (from seed). On meeting Sean, my daughter, the family tree-embracer and inspiration behind out treebucks programme indulged in a Wild Olive tree pack . Sean is a dynamic guy -  and I suspect if we had lingered for any length of time at his stand, I would have taken home a small forest in seed form. I think it’s the best gift for someone who loves growing stuff.

If you would prefer the idea of a bigger tree with a more immediate effect on the environment, instead of the long haul of waiting for your baby to grown from seed, then Food and Trees for Africa are the people to contact. In addition to planting trees to offset carbon emissions, they also run  programmes that educate communities about sustainable food gardening.

We will be contacting them today with our latest order! We are happy to report that 10 trees will be taking root on behalf of clients who earned enough treebucks recently.

Treebucks? Treebucks are virtual points we award to clients who order printed goods through our company. We love design and marketing, but the worst part about it is thinking of all that paper being used. After working out how many square metres of paper would be equivalent to a tree, we award clients treebucks based on the square-meterage of their print order. When they have enough bucks – we buy a tree from Food and Trees for Africa on their behalf.

We have a few clients teetering on the brink of being tree “owners”, and some who are about to be responsible for mini plantations. We are grateful for all of their orders and although they might never actually sit under the tree they are responsible for, they can enjoy the virtual benediction of the shade and wealth they have provided for countless others.

Have you planted/hugged/consigned to hell/deported/climbed a tree today?

Taxi!

The must wear design for all South Africans abroad!

Other countries deal with moose or kangaroos or hedgehogs crossing the roads. Here in South Africa the hazards are people, goats and worst of all, taxis. There is not a  South African driver who has not had a close encounter of the hair-raising kind with a “mini-bus” taxi. Every week there are news reports of horrific accidents involving taxis or shocked newspaper articles about taxis running over school children.  We are all briefly up in arms, but then the usual reaction sets in – Ho hum, some other poor sod had a taxi  – stop suddenly in front of them/veer across three lanes of traffic/burst into flames/scream through a red light at top speed/take a turn too fast and end up rolling/sideswipe your car as it gets back on the official road, having driven down the emergency lane for the last 10 kilometres (circle applicable).

The government has finally instituted the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system. This is the hopes that spectators will be able to get to soccer matches in one piece in 2010 perhaps? The petulant taxi industry is having a tantrum. They don’t want the buses in their sandbox and so they are holding their collective breaths until the buses go home.  Competition is not something they like at all. In fact rival taxi companies have been known to have gunfights at the sightest provocation – another reason to avoid them!

I want to say: “Go ahead – take your toys and go home, I love the roads without taxis on them.” But there are people who desperately need taxis to get them to and from work and it’s not great for the economy… hopefully the BRT will be able to cope despite first day chaos and the need for these death traps on wheels will decrease.

I am enjoying the taxi free roads in the meantime.