The Rural We: Chelsey Simmons

A native of southern rural Missouri, Chelsey Simmons moved up to the Berkshires to attend Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where she earned a BS in environmental studies. She was hired by the Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) as their water quality associate in October. More recently BEAT offered her the position of education and outreach coordinator, which she accepted. In that role, she will be leading a free winter tree identification walk on Saturday, March 19 at Springside Park in Pittsfield.

I knew I wanted to be in New England — I love the area. Where I grew up it’s very flat, so I love the hills and mountains in the Berkshires. I graduated from MCLA just a few months before the pandemic, so I did various jobs: nannying, and working at the Mass Audubon outdoor education camp before coming to BEAT.

BEAT is an environmental nonprofit organization that works to protect wildlife that supports the natural world. We do this through education and outreach, stewardship, and watchdogging. We also do events like Pittsfield Green Drinks, an informal gathering (right now on Zoom) on the third Tuesday of the month. These nights are free and open to everyone with any environmental interest. We do wildlife tracking outings and hikes and have speakers.

I have such admiration for trees, and I love when I can share the admiration and knowledge that I have with people. I’ve led many tree walks with kids, but the winter walk is for anyone who’s interested. Winter is a great time to get to know your trees because you can’t use leaves as the main identifier. You have to look at a tree’s overall form, shape, texture and color. Also the branching of the tree and the twigs. One of the interesting features at Springside is that it has an American chestnut preserve. Those trees are fenced off, mostly to protect them from animals, but we can still see them and learn about them. It’ll be a leisurely walk, around two miles.

I’ve been working on a tree identification book for the past two years, hand drawing everything — common trees and shrubs mostly in western Massachusetts. I’ve started scanning them and will be adding them to the Tree of the Month Series on the BEAT website. I constantly have a lot of projects going on — I do bookbinding, other drawing, and I like to go hiking with my dog.