The first thing I wanted to add to our blank slate of a landscape 19 years ago was a wind break. I don’t recall my logic or if there was actually wind to “break” but I’d convinced myself it was a necessity. So we added five white pine trees (roughly 6 feet in height) along the northwestern facing part of our yard.

Oversharing alert: I know these were added at the end of March that year because I have clear memory of limping through the front yard to check out my new trees. Why was I limping? Because I’d had a vasectomy the day prior. There is something poetic about the dichotomy of a vasectomy and the planting of new trees, right? And yes, that’s the first time a vasectomy has been dubbed “poetic”.

Moving on.

Here are those trees today, all near forty feet in height and tightly packed together.

And you know what? They really do block the wind.

Go me.