For a kid from slushy Southern Ontario, sunny California seemed like the promised land, and when I finally arrived there in 1985, it didn’t disappoint. Palm trees lined the highways, the blue Pacific stretched out forever, and the majestic, mysterious and ancient redwoods covered the mountains in Santa Cruz County, where I eventually made my home. In my wildest childhood dreams, I never saw myself living in a forest dominated by these iconic behemoths, but somehow, that’s what happened, and now I’ve been living in a redwood forest for a little over 20 years. Redwood trees have to be big and strong to survive the unpredictable conditions of their mountainous coastal habitat, which is prone to natural disasters. Since arriving in coastal California, I’ve seen significant property damage from gale-force winds, wildfires, excessive rainfall, lightning strikes — even a major earthquake — and the trees simply shrug off these disasters.…