"In all my works I take the part of trees against all their enemies," J.R.R. Tolkien wrote late in his life.  The Master of Middle Earth even referred on one occasion to The Lord of the Rings as "my own inner tree." With springtime erupting everywhere, I've been reading Humphrey Carpenter's J.R.R. Tolkein:  A Biography.  … Continue reading Tolkien, Trees and a Naturalist’s Notebook: Noticing Nature as Mordor Looms