Shane Varndore has been a tree guy for pretty much his entire life. But he doesn’t just saw them down and it’s not fair to reduce what he does for a living to just getting rid of inconvenient vegetation. I wouldn’t have asked him to be part of Polk Lore if that was the case. We’ve known each for quite a while, and I guess he’s learned to trust me enough to sit down for an honest talk about trees, our relationship with them, and some things that we’re doing with them and to them that we probably shouldn’t be doing.
If this episode sounds a little different, that’s on purpose. I set up my recording gear on some logs in his yard in Saluda on one of those gorgeous September mornings that reminds us all why we live where we do. Our conversation was a little more free-ranging than what you might expect. But I think it holds together, largely because Shane has clearly been studying and thinking long and hard about what trees mean at both the ecological and community level.
