Lop Unneeded Tree Limbs and Tax Liabilities. Promote health.

Sam and I were outside today pruning bushes while Kathleen was inside attempting to prune how much income tax we would owe this year.

Do you prune? You should. My sainted Italian grandfather was a firm believer in pruning, and according to a University of Minnesota Extension bulletin, "horticultural pruning not only alters the form and growth of a plant, but can be considered preventive maintenance. Many problems may be prevented by pruning correctly during formative years for a tree or shrub,” the bulletin says.

Sam and I can’t help thinking the same would be true of taxes. In the case of taxes, proper early pruning, no doubt, would involve good record keeping, which I confess, I do not do well. Before I went outside to whack at bushes today, I spent a good hour going through my bank statements and post office receipts to ascertain how much money I made and spent on my book writing (not much).

Researching the word pruning, I found reference to something called synaptic pruning in Wikipedia – my infallible source for information. Dig this (pun intended). In neuroscience, synaptic pruning or axon pruning is the process of synapse elimination that occurs (like in your brain) between early childhood and the onset of puberty. You knew your brain had synapses didn’t you?

According to the Wikipedia article, “Synaptic pruning starts near the time of birth and is completed by the time of sexual maturation in humans do tell). At birth, the human brain reportedly consists of approximately 86 (± 8) billion neurons. The infant brain will increase in size by a factor of up to 5 by adulthood. Two factors contribute to this growth: the growth of synaptic connections between neurons, and the myelination of nerve fibers; the number of neurons stays the same though." Synaptic pruning is influenced by environmental factors – same as with your plants - and is widely thought to represent learning.

“It is believed that the purpose of synaptic pruning is to remove unnecessary neuronal structures from the brain; as the human brain develops, the need to understand more complex structures becomes much more pertinent, and simpler associations formed at childhood are thought to be replaced by complex structures." After adolescence, the volume of the synaptic connections decreases again due to synaptic pruning.

“Despite the fact it has several connotations with regulation of cognitive childhood development, synaptic pruning is thought to be a process of removing neurons which may have become damaged or degraded in order to further improve the "networking" capacity of a particular area of the brain.

“In the mature brain, the selection of the pruned terminal arbors follow the "use it or lose it" principle. This means synapses that are frequently used have strong connections while the rarely used synapses are eliminated.”

Sam and I bet you didn’t know that! But now you do! You can send us money to thank us if you want.

Getting back to my sainted Italian grandfather, that guy could prune trees and graft fruit trees like nobody’s business and he was not shy about sharing his expertise on the matter. When I was a teenager he visited my family in California briefly (briefly because he was afraid of earthquakes). One morning, wondering where grandpa had gone off to, we found him outside across the street loudly and proudly advising a neighbor how to prune his walnut tree. The neighbor didn’t seem that appreciative of grandpa’s advice, but I nearly died laughing at the scene.

Hey people! Have an aboriffic day!