Well, TreeGirls and Boys, I am off on a pilgrimage to make love with the baobabs, and other delicious and phenomenal primeval tree people in Southern Africa!

My journey begins in October in South Africa, then up to Botswana and Namibia for a brief encounter, through Lesotho to find some rock art, then over to the island of Madagascar to see 6 out of 8 species of baobabs that exist nowhere else in the world!

Much of this journey and has been inspired by the works of Thomas Pakenham (see blog 4). Many of these trees are in danger from global climate change desertification, as well as being cut down, not by logging companies, but by farmers trying to make land productive! I'm sure to see many more fantastical trees like this and more, hopefully, before they are gone!

Stay tuned for the next blog! (may have to wait till I return after New Year's)

A few weekends ago I had the ecstatic pleasure of hanging out with Meeting with Remarkable Trees author, Thomas Pakenaham. The occasion was a benefit for Canopy, a noteworthy urban tree planting organization in Palo Alto. (www.canopy.org ) Thanks to my new Master Arborist friend, Dave Muffly, (A.K.A. Oakboy) on the Board of Canopy, I had the chance of a lifetime to tour the trees of Palo Alto, including this champion Aleppo Pine Pinus Halepensis.

If you've never seen Pakenhams series of books, by all means, do as soon as possible! Thomas' work has inspired this TreeGirl to journey around the world, in search of the most spectular tree people on the planet. Thomas is a sweet, gentle soul, with an intense pleasure for tree identification and, of course, photographing them. A brilliant man, Thomas is already the Earl of Longford in Ireland, and I havn't told him this yet, but I am also dubbing him to be an honorary TreeBoy. For a man of his worldy experience, boy seems like an unlikely title, but still, I hope he considers it a compliment.

His most recent book, In Search of Remarkable Trees On Safari in Africa, as well as The Remarkable Baobab are my primary resources for my upcoming Autumn journey to South Africa and hopefully Madagascar to make love with the baobabs, including the 2nd largest (in girth) tree on the planet. (The largest is a cypress in Oxaca, Mexico.)Look for the Africa Series sometime in October!

Autumn is a blissful time for TreeGirls- autumn colors, autumn smells, autumn light, autumn weather, and ACORNS! Another way to Make Love with the Earth is to interact with the oak trees, is by gathering and eating their fruits- acorns!

READ MORE to learn about harvesting, leaching and cooking acorns!

Quercus robur x lobata - not the best acorn food in terms of tannis, but they are big and meaty!