Trees and thank you

One of our neighbors down the street works for a non-profit called Sound Forest.  It plants trees around Nashville, for free in some low-income neighborhoods, and does educational outreach about the importance of having trees in our communities.  Tom, our neighbor, let us know last week that he was trying to plant trees down the street and was asking each household to pay for two trees out in front of their houses.  Wes and I decided to go ahead with it -- partly because we like trees, partly because we think it adds value to the lot (especially since we'll soon have to remove the ailing elm in our front yard), and partly because we were hoping it would help establish a sense of good neighborliness.  We paid, in our estimation, probably more than it would have cost for us to buy and plant the trees ourselves, but hey -- that's what school wrapping paper drives are for, right?  I do have to say, though, that the street looks pretty nice with all these new trees in.  The yellow flags for gas lines and the rainbow spray painted on our grass aren't helping, but I guess it all adds a little bit of interest to the lot.