Ray Wallace would probably rather be climbing a tree.
The city forester for Jefferson City, Wallace isn't spotted scaling oaks as often as he once was - the city Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department has two bucket trucks for tree trimming and removal - but that doesn't mean he's not out checking on trees in public parks and city rights-of-way.
Even on days when he's working behind a desk, that desk is surrounded by buckets of buckeyes and scattered with persimmon seeds. (Persimmon seeds, when cut open, are said to predict winter weather based on the shape of kernel inside. A spoon shape means lots of snow; a fork means a milder winter; and a knife means bitter, cutting cold.)
Wallace will have worked 20 years for the Parks Department in November - 19 of those as city forester.
This year - the May 22 tornado in particular - was pretty hard on the trees he cares for.
"We had two parks lose a lot of trees, and we still haven't gotten those cleaned up and probably won't until at least a year from now. There's just so many," he said.
He's referring to Hickory Park, near Jackson Street, and Aurora Park, near Tanner Bridge Road - both areas in the tornado's path.
The damage in Aurora Park was especially disheartening.
"We have a greenway trail going through it, and it took down about every tree along the greenway - beautiful old oak trees," Wallace said. "All we did was open a path through it; you can walk through there, drive through there - you can get through easily, but you look at it and you're so depressed. All these trees are down; what are we going to do now?"
JC Parks, along with the Missouri Department of Conservation and Forest ReLeaf of Missouri, distributed hundreds of trees on Tanner Bridge Road to local residents impacted by the tornado to replace some of those lost. The department plans to host another tree giveaway next spring in Hickory Park.
In most cases, when a tree is removed in a city park, two more are planted to replace it.
The department started its own nursery this spring.
"We got 200 different seedlings from Conservation, potted all 200 of them, and they're doing well," Wallace said.
The goal is to have 600 trees ready to plant at all times.
"When I first started, they didn't involve trees in a lot of the major projects," Wallace said. "Anymore, they do because they know trees are the only infrastructure that increases in value; everything else is going down, and trees go up. Trees take care of your air quality, your water quality, your mental state - people see all this stuff, and it makes them happy."
His staff replanted trees in downtown Jefferson City in 2003-04 - locusts along High Street, London planes along Madison Street, and bald cypress and zelkovas along Monroe Street.
And on East Capitol Avenue, all new maples, oaks and gingkos were planted in 2017. Well, all new except for one - a sycamore at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Lafayette Street estimated to be about 120 years old.
Despite their efforts, May 22 wasn't kind to that sycamore either.
"They redid the road around it to keep the big tree lawn for it, and the tornado comes and takes it out. That was sad," Wallace said. " The other trees were not damaged hardly at all because they were small. They survived it, and they'll grow up in the next 20-30 years and it'll be a nice tree-lined street."
The trees of Jefferson City's downtown area and all city parks have been inventoried in recent years, and Wallace hopes to secure a grant to fund an inventory of trees on the east side of town next.
"It's easier to manage stuff when you know what you have," he said. "We always thought we had more trees in the city than we did along city rights-of-way - we don't. We guessed around 100,000 trees just on the city property and parks. It's closer to maybe 20,000 at most. There's a lot of trees on private property that may push it up closer to 100,000, but we were surprised by that."
Wallace developed his love of tree-climbing long before he worked for the city, back when he was working his way through school for a tree service.
"It's just fun to be up in a tree climbing," he said.
(And, if you're wondering, the persimmon seeds on Wallace's desk show mostly spoons - so get your snow shovels ready.)