JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 4: The Judge’s Descendant and the Coconut Tree

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stored. Know was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways The rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.

When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”
I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”
We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!”

Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.

We got the email from Earth a few days ago, from the last living Lunar Walker. He wants to come and see the Tree.

Yeah, we have our Tree. It’s a redwood and it’s been growing for the past seven years not far from Jax Lunar Lumber. Oh! Don’t worry, we’re not planning to cut it down or anything. It’s sort of our mascot, actually…if you can have a tree for a mascot. It’s on our website. I should know, cause I’m the one who put it there. I’ve been planting trees on the Moon for the past two years. I leased a lava tube and using some plans I found on the internet, I started to create a habitat that they can survive in.

I know saying that I’ve been planting trees for the past two years makes it sound like I’m some sort of Johnny Appleseed – though that would be Cedric Allen Easternpine, which kind of sounds cool, but my real last name’s just Allen.

Anyway, travel from Earth to the Moon and back has become sort of routine – as routine as taking a vacation in the Antarctic is back on Earth…weird if not impossible. But like I was saying before I got sidetracked, the Last Lunar Walker wants to come up here, look around, and I guess he wants to die here.

Creepy, but I had an aunt in my hometown of Crosby, Minnesota who wanted her body entombed in a casket carved from iron ore, and sunk to the bottom of one of the old iron mine lakes. She was rich, and threw enough of her money at it while she was still smart enough to manage her own affairs, that they eventually gave up resisting her and named the lake after her and called it the Ceilia Anne-Johnson Usorituen Water Cemetery.

I will say a few of my relatives nearly had heart attacks of their own before she ended up getting what she wanted.

So, she’s there, and the Last Moon Walker is using HER case (and law team) to make it so that he can be buried on the Moon.

Of course, Lunar Law being so new and all, there’s a statute that says you can’t technically bury anyone in a hole in the surface. It’s got to be part of some sort of structure. While the Last Moon Walker hasn’t named himself, we have a fair idea who it is and so I wrote to the whole group and offered the possibility of being made into humus and being used to grow another tree of their choice – though they have to bring several seeds with them when they leave Earth.

The thing is, the Last Moon Walker picked a coconut tree to be buried under. Just so happens to be one of the larger species of coconuts – the Cocos nucifera. You’ve seen it, I’m sure. It’s pretty much the “coconut” tree everyone imagines when they think of a coconut palm.

The problem is that Moon soil is totally wrong and the only way we can grow trees on the Moon is if they are actually planted in the soil…

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut Image: https://i.insider.com/6285a7720fdb180018cc15a3?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp