A sad end to a life 150+ years long.

[Dan]

At around 0800 this morning, I was planning a lazy day of hiding indoors where the AC would mitigate the expected 106F sizzle. I had no intentions of going anywhere outside today without a damn good reason, and once the mercury hits triple digits, those are pretty hard to come by. So, whilst typing away at something surely meaningless here at my desk, and had just glanced out the window. Seeing that all was well, and the Parks crew had arrived and was cleaning up after yesterday's inconsiderate jerks er ... citizens/park users. All was basically well with the world, even though it was already over 82F out there.

As I glanced back toward my screen, I heard an unaccountably loud crack outside, and looked out the window again, just in time to see a huge hunk of a grand-daddy oak tree hit the ground over at the park pavilion with one helluva wham. Needless to say, I hit the door at a dead run. Several tons of live oak had just come down exactly where these guys usually park their truck when they work.

By the time I made it across the street, I could see both guys standing under the pavilion canopy, looking stunned, but otherwise unhurt. Having a way with understatement, the youngest of the two looked at his companion and said, "Well. That sucks. Glad we moved the truck."

So, no panic, no harm, no foul, unless you count the two or three days it's going to take to finish felling the monster, or the death of the tree itself.


And as usual ... pictures ...




Right after it came down:



A very lucky Chevy:



The reason it came down:



The business end of the bough that fell:



Limbing out the other side:



They got most of it down and hauled off today. The remainder of the trunk still stands, although it's rotted hollow all the way down the middle, and probably into the roots. Monday is soon enough to drop that part. The weight is off, so the danger is mostly mitigated. In all likelihood this monster was actually killed back in 2000 when a winter ice storm took the tops out of a number of these old oaks. Once the tops were broken, their fates were sealed. Since then, they've hollowed out, and one by one, have succumbed to the ravages of time, rot, bugs and stifling summer heat.

Seems like somewhat of an ignominious end to a life that survived floods, droughts, both the first major fire in Paris, and then the big one of 1916, then endured the tornado in 1982 that levelled so much of the town.

I'd hate to have to try to count the number of birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, proposals, piñatas and gatherings of family, friends, sweethearts and the general happy mayhem of children running, laughing and shouting beneath the shade of its sheltering branches over the span of a century and a half.

I saved a couple of big hunks of it. Not sure what I'm going to make with them yet, but I sure hope it will be something more befitting and enduring than the fate of the rest of it. That being the grinder over at the municipal public mulch pit.


So ... that was my Friday. What's happening in your little corner of the world this weekend?

[DBelton]

Yowzerz!

You might be able to whittle you a toothpick out of that tree

It is sad to see such a grand tree fall, though There are getting to be fewer and fewer of the old trees left in this world.

What is even sadder is the fact that they are pretty much forced to take down the entire tree now, due to safety concerns

[Dan]

They don't seem to get too bothered by losing trees down here. Certainly nothing like, say, Green River/Rock Springs, WY or Las Cruces, NM, or La Junta, CO. I guess relative scarcity has a lot to do with it.


Here's the same oak winter before last (Feb 2010):

[flyingfsck]

Oak trees tend to get that hollowing rot after a couple hundred years or so.

You should plant a new sapling and put your name on a sturdy stainless steel plaque a couple meters in front of it and you may be revered a few centuries from now as the grand ol'oak planter of the primitive 21st century...

[bob]

Up around here, we've got plenty of giants, although most of them are white pine with a shallow root system. They sure are stately standing there at 100+ feet tall, yet I don't see any that are 150 feet, so when the giants are in your yard and anywhere near your house, it's a good idea to spend a few hundred to euthanize them rather than have Mother Nature decide where they'll land!

[Adunaic]

Originally Posted by Dan

I saved a couple of big hunks of it. Not sure what I'm going to make with them yet, but I sure hope it will be something more befitting and enduring than the fate of the rest of it. That being the grinder over at the municipal public mulch pit.

With a nice old tree like that I would not want to cut it up much. May be take a slice and puts some legs on it so you have a nice table. If you managed to / can get some of the small 2-3 inch across branches, they make excellent coasters.

[Dan]

I've got a friend who turns bowls out of such logs. I'll be sending a few for him to work with, but methinks I'll also completely annoy the "organic art" crowd by turning at least one log into one of these ...









... only this time I'm thinking in terms of an articulated loader, or a D9.

[billybob linux]

I think trees are amazing, I tend to think of them as one of natures wise old men, silently standing in sentinel, watching and listening but saying nothing. Maybe they know something or many things we do not .

[John the train]

Originally Posted by billybob linux

I think trees are amazing, I tend to think of them as one of natures wise old men, silently standing in sentinel, watching and listening but saying nothing. Maybe they know something or many things we do not .

I'd second the ' old ', unless my memory is playing tricks the oldest living things on the planet are bristlecone pines in California, which make Dan's oak look like a seedling.

[Penguinclaw]

When I was young and before Dutch Elm Disease had it's wicked way, my Father turned a slice of Elm trunk into the body of a turntable he was making. After being lovingly oiled it looked stunning and was certainly unique; a great party talking point!

I'm glad you've managed to salvage some of it as oak has such a beautiful grain In the UK the Oak is still revered for it's past use in ship building.

[Misfit138]

I'm in southern New Jersey, and we got an incredibly powerful storm about 4 weeks ago.
It started at about 1 in the morning, and only lasted an hour or so, but it sounded like a freight train going through my house- I thought my house was gonna pull a Dorothy and be lifted away to Oz.
2 Maples in my yard came down, and JUST missed my house. I could not open my front door, though as it was blocked by the Red Maple in my front yard.
On the following morning, the whole county looked like it was hit by an all night artillery strike. We lost power for 6 days. Some people were out for 2 weeks or more.
The church house behind me had a hundred-year-old-Oak come down across the roof, breaking the ridge and taking down the power lines in the street.
My neighbor on the other side had 2 hundred-year-old-Oaks come down, one of 'em destroying his shed.

I wore out 2 chains over the next week, felling, bucking and limbing the carnage.
Fortunately, no one in my neighborhood was injured.
Looks like I'll be burning mostly Oak this winter. I got about 5 cords of wood out of that storm!

[Dan]

After limbing and pulling down as much weight as possible, the trunk was felled with the help of a backhoe. There wasn't much left to it on the inside. Rot had hollowed it out to the point that the old thing crushed like an eggshell when it hit the ground.

It's a big file, but here's the video of it when it came down.

http://www.zyloo-enterprises.com/sto...de-felling.mp4