There’s nothing more calming and downright medicinal than taking a long walk through some our region’s beautiful hardwood forests. Pacing among the trunks of old trees, listening to the breeze lightly blow the leaves or – in the winter – the winds bend the branches. It’s perfection, all brought to you by nature.

During one of my recent walks, I was sad to see so many of these old-growth trees with small, D-shaped holes in their bark. Noticing these marks brought me from “meditative calm” to “moderate existential panic” pretty quickly. Why? These trees – most of which are ash trees – had been infected by an invasive species so damaging that we could see the complete eradication of ash trees in our region as a result. The emerald ash borer has been in Maryland since 2015 and has wreaked havoc on our ash trees since.