Posts Tagged ‘broken limb’
Tree Scenes
After Friday’s overnight blast of rain and thunder that swiftly transitioned into a heavy blizzard dropping 1-to-2-inch per hour of snow, Saturday delivered a blue sky with enough sunshine to reduce the snow cover by half.
I was getting pelted by snow and ice chunks falling from the branches as I wandered around taking pictures of the after-effects of the spring storm. The icy tree branches caught most of my attention.
The gaping wound on this ornamental maple tree at the top of our driveway exposes the harsh reality of the toll these kinds of weather events dish out on the greatest assets we have on our land.
Similar to the way some trees hold the leaves at the very top in the fall after the lower branches have become bare, several of our trees had crowns of ice reflecting the sunlight.
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I’ll conclude with a tree that showed no sign of life last year, failing to sprout a single green needle yet still has enough structure to support the snow like a healthy tree.
There will be a lot of branch-collecting to be done across our acres after the snow finally melts away this year. I’m looking ahead to the days when our tree scenes return to their green best.
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Lost Limb
Well, just as I’d hoped, that unlikely balanced broken treetop has come down on its own in the wind. At least, that’s what we assume happened. I have no proof because we haven’t been able to find it again. 
While that horizontal segment was resting on the fracture point it was hard to miss. The straight flat line it created stood out like a sore thumb within the canopy of random vertical branches around it.
As soon as we discovered the horizontal segment was no longer up there, I started looking for the “topped” stub that should have remained. Can’t find it.
I’ve looked twice. It’s possible the bottom half has now toppled, as well, but there wasn’t obvious evidence of a newly fallen tree, either.
My next plan is to bring the photo with me to see if I can identify the trees around the trunk in question.
No matter how many times we walk our woods, the constant changes keep us confused about which tipped trees are new and which are ones we’ve already seen.
Jumping to another subject, one we would prefer disappeared on us… In the early morning darkness yesterday, Cyndie was in the barn getting feed for the chickens. She was going to put out a food pan under the overhang and flipped on the light before opening the door.
That must have startled the skunk that was out there, because when she opened the door to find Pepé Le Pew about a foot away, it blinked at her in confusion, giving her time to hastily retreat and close the door.
By the time she gathered her courage to open the top half of the door to see if a photo would be possible, the skunk had already disappeared.
I would like to find that mysterious missing limb, but I really don’t want to find that skunk again.
What do you think the odds are that Le Pew was making a one-time visit on the way to somewhere else?
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Relative Something 