Frank M. Jenner III, C.A. is the owner of Arborist Consultants LLC.
He recently completed 14 years of service for the City of Valdosta, GA USA as their City Arborist.
He is International Society of Arboriculture Certified Arborist SO-0299.
He is past president of the Georgia Urban Forest Council and past president of the Georgia Electric Membership Corporation Foremen and Supervisors Association. He is a past Board Member of the Southern Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture.
He participates in tourdestrees.org and acornsofhope.org planting trees and riding bicycles with his friends, visiting cities and towns all over North America sharing his knowledge and love of trees with the children and anyone else who might be interested.
He is an avid motorcyclist and loves the freedom of the open road.
He wants to help people to learn how to live in harmony with their natural environment.When I was a child growing up, I had a good fortune to grow up across the road from a 280 acre unbroken tract of forest owned by the Boy Scouts. I still remember vividly coming home from school, throwing my school books down, having some milk and cookies, and saying: "Hi mom, love you, by mom, I'll be back when you have supper ready." then I would go to the woods and wander with a free spirit, clear and quiet mind, and happy, contented heart, looking at whatever caught my attention. Sometimes, I would stop at the stream, and catch and release some polliwogs. Other times, I would stop and examine closely a wild flower on the forest floor that had just bloomed. When I would find wild strawberries, I would sit down in the strawberry patch and graze contentedly until I had my fill. On rare occasions I would encounter the red eft newt on his solitary journey along the forest floor. I identified with the red eft newt as a fellow sojourner on our travels through an always brand new world. I would get down on the forest floor at his level and study him, as he watched and studied me in the same way. The forest was my friend, protector, and provider.
Today, the forest is still my friend, protector and provider in so many ways. On an insufferably hot July afternoon in South Georgia, I still seek the relief of cool shade of the big Oak Tree at the end of a long parking lot radiating back and reinforcing the intense heat from the summer sun. When work becomes incredibly overwhelming, I walk in a city park, and look at and touch the trees. In doing this , my serenity will return and within this peace of mind I will find the courage to carry on. When the weather turns cool, I will cut some firewood. When I come home from yet another long day of work to a cold, dark house, I light a fire in the fireplace and feel the comfort of radiant heat that only wood heat provides. Lying down on the couch, I silently watch the flickering flames and glowing of the logs as they coal. Drowsily, I contemplate nothing in particular, and again the serenity will return...
The next morning, I will go to work, and come upon yet another part of the ragged remnant forest cut and cleared forever from the city, to build yet another parking lot and store. When this happens I feel the same sadness that I feel with the loss of yet another friend, as the forest yields without protest to the chain saw and bulldozer. In a rainstorm, I watch my quality of life erode in the same way as the now barren soil, denuded of trees, plants, flowers, and birds, washes down and fills the now overtaxed concrete drainpipe with sediment which was once part of the fertile living forest floor.
Can I do anything about this? Perhaps I can. I would be foolish not to try, for I alone can determined how I live my life and feel about the environment I live and work in. I can choose to plant a tree in my yard, and care for it as I watch it grow. And I can talk to you, and we can talk to others, about trying to save a part of the remnants of our old friends, the community forest
