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Pine seed angel: Backyard tidings

When my parents bought their home in Marshall, Texas, in 1984, there were 96 mature trees on their one-acre lot, many of them towering pines that rise 75 feet or more from the ground, covering their house with a peaceful green canopy. These giant pines are beautiful but deadly. Now and then an unbalanced growth pattern or a particularly savage storm disrupts the delicate balance of one of these trees, causing it to topple. The tree leans and the ground bulges. Roots snap with gunshot concussions as the tree begins to fall.

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