Have you ever considered how limited a can opener is in its actual utility? Not that this is a bad thing, but think about a screw driver, a hammer, a pry-bar. Those tools are multi-dimensional, and can achieve many different tasks, and with absolute quality. The can opener, on the contrary, is highly specialized. It opens the can.

Everyone has a can opener.

This is a beautiful allegory to how arboriculture fits into our lives, or how it can maybe better fit into our lives. Consider the hard earned skills you’ve developed in the trade: climbing, rigging, managing, selling, caring and making. These are all highly specialized skills, and very specific to tree care (and even specific within the entire whole of arboriculture itself). In other words, you can’t air spade and inoculate soil, and then go administer vaccinations at the local VA hospital. Tree care is tree care.

Even though it is highly specific skill set and trade, it opens up our lives to what’s important. The food, the family, the friends.

I’ve opened a few cans in my day by several means. To date nothing is as smooth or efficient as the can opener. Maybe this is also true for many other arborists. Tree care comes very naturally, the pruning and the good service to tree owners in many communities. When we become so efficient in our trade, and understand what it can unlock for us from a utility standpoint, I believe its easier to appreciate what we do.

I remember the first can I tried to open too. It was a complete disaster. The can just spun round and round, and I couldn’t figure out how to get the perforation I needed the access I needed to contents inside. Can opening is definitely an inherited skill, and a refined practice, with a few scuffed hands along the way.

We care for trees to feed our families, to enjoy the outdoors, to serve our friends in our local communities, to educate the people in our communities and the people we work with, to make money to support our lifestyles, to stay in shape and be healthy, and to also be a part of a colorful and professional community. These are all the things in the can.

And the cupboard is full.