Planting Trees

This morning we woke up a bit earlier than usual on a Sunday, to go and help with planting trees on the Ymmitos hills that had been burned down at the beginning of last summer.

The event was organized by the municipality, various nature and forest organizations and promoted by some TV station. The ground was prepared, holes were dug and seedlings were dispersed at the holes. We got handed a hoe (in Greek a "τσάπα") and then we marched up the hillside to start planting.

We went up to the higher part and started working our way to parts that weren't done yet. We set a lot of little trees in the ground, trying to prepare their new home as good as we could to increase their chances of survival.

Despite the cold weather with soft rain, there were lots of people working. Boy scouts, schools, families with children, young people, all ages up to pensioners. There were also firefighters from various municipalities around here.

Now I don't know how much sense this kind of organized mass planting makes. Some of the holes were prepared in rocky spots with little earth. We tried to move the seedlings to places with good soil. Whatever the sense behind all this, there's little more we can do except to have an eye on the little trees. All the rest will be nature's work and the little tree's luck and will to survive.