Filed under: General
I mourn the old oak in the corner of the yard, lost to this year’s drought. I knew it was losing limbs occasionally, but I did not realize it was dead until I looked up Saturday and saw that all the leaves on it were brown and withered.
Sunday morning I took a better look at it, to see if it was truly dead or if it might not somehow make it through the winter. I found that bark had showered down around the tree from where it had fallen from the trunk. Parts of the trunk felt almost mineral-like where the bark had fallen from them. And there was a small crack at the bottom of the tree, with quite a bit of sawdust coming from it. I saw that some of the top branches had either not had leaves at all this spring or had already lost them. Then I knew there was no hope.
So we will have the old tree cut down. It is quite close to the road and it would not do for it to fall into the street and possibly onto a car or a passerby. We will have plenty of firewood this winter, but it is a poor trade. I remember looking out of the window and watching the sun rise past the tree many times. It was part of my life for almost 30 years. How could I not have noticed what was happening to it?
Granted, the tree is in a part of the yard we rarely use, a part left untouched when the house was built. There are so many tangled vines (not to mention poison ivy) in that corner that I never take the dog there. From the ground, from the rest of the yard, the trunk still looked sturdy, at least four or five feet around, clutching the ground with gnarled roots. Only by looking up could you see the tree dying bit by bit. Only by penetrating the tangle of vines could you see the damage being done to the very heart of the tree.
This reminds me to be more mindful of everything in my care. We have only half an acre of land - not much to tend, you would think. And yet, this death happens under my very nose. I will honor the old oak by taking very good care of all of its neighbors, especially the two sapplings, scions of the old tree, that I found growing near it. I will cherish them like my own children.
