Carl Meinecke sidles up to an ash tree and wraps a tape measure around the trunk, gathering both circumference and diameter in one move.
“Diameter is 17.9 inches,” Carbondale’s town arborist tells colleague and public landscape technician, Allison Uri.
While Uri logs the number into her phone, Meinecke stands back, looks up and inspects the tree’s crown. No obvious signs of damage — no thinning, no dead spots, no noticeably small leaves.