I have hired an arborist to trim some branches that overhang my back yard and shade it too much. Here is his proposal, in its entirety, written on the back of a business card:

This is, for readers who are not familiar with my back yard, a perfectly clear description of exactly which limbs to remove from exactly which trees to give my garden a bit more sunlight. And how much he will charge for this work. So now I am confident that my arborist knows what needs to be done; and three weeks from now when he shows up, he will look at this and remember.

I really like this arborist. Here are some of the things I like about him.

I know that the trees I want trimmed are oak trees. But he knows that they are *white* oaks.

He loves a beautiful tree. Every arborist that came to give me an estimate looked at the old American elm tree by my driveway (indicated in my arborist’s proposal by the small semicircle near the bottom center) with unabashed admiration, and my arborist is no exception.

He likes making a beautiful tree even more beautiful. “You see those dead branches there?” My arborist points to a spot above the branch he is to remove. “While I’m up thereI could take those out. And look; there are some dead branches on the tree over there, too.” He indicates another tree. “Would you like those out?”

I’ve never seen any of these dead branches before. While I am still trying to adjust to a job that may cost more than I want to spend, he apologizes. “I’m always noticing dead branches,” he says.

“No,” I decide. “Leave all that. Just take out the branches we’ve talked about.”

Surprisingly, the arborist is relieved. “Thank you,” he says. “This was starting to look like a really big job.”

I like watching him think about how he is going to do the work. “We’ll have to string a cable here, and one over there. I can use that to get to that branch over there. And then, maybe…” I envision men flying by cables across my back yard. Tarzans of the ‘burbs. This job looks like it will be fun.

And this is what I like most of all: My arborist appreciates the small things about trees. “I saw a hummingbird the other day,” he tells me. He’d been doing some work near the Charles River.  “He’d swoop down under the bridge that was nearby–or maybe it was a she–and get a spider web, and she was weaving it into a nest all the way at the very end of a branch. It was a tiny little nest, no bigger than this.” He makes a circle of his thumb and forefinger.

There is something really wonderful about a man who appreciates the hummingbirds.