Posts Tagged ‘oak tree’
Fourteenth November
We are in our fourteenth November on these twenty acres and marveling over the thought that we have been tending these fields and forests for that long. Thinking back to when we first arrived, one particular vivid memory stays fresh in my mind. The very first time I ventured off-trail in our woods, I came upon the fresh, blood-red skeleton of an 8-point buck in a circle of hair and paw prints.
We had heard the excited yips of a pack of coyotes during the night a week before that, but didn’t realize how close to our house they were or what the ruckus actually meant. We’ve heard similar howling packs over the years since, sometimes triggered by an emergency vehicle siren, but haven’t come upon any similarly obvious evidence on our land like that carcass.
A stray bone is not uncommon, though.
Cyndie recently trained me in recognizing the invasive garlic mustard plant she has worked for years to disrupt, and we spent some time during an afternoon last week pulling sprouts in the areas off-trail that are less obvious. I found it a little overwhelming because it seems to be everywhere. We did what we could until my ability to cope was exhausted.
I can see why she just makes it a habit to pull whatever catches her eye when on our walks. She stuffs her pockets with plastic shopping bags to always have a way to bag and dispose of what she pulls up, an essential step in eradicating the highly destructive invasive.
There was a tiny oak sprout that caught my attention, barely tall enough to stand above the dead leaf blanket covering the ground in November. The leaves were so perfect. Apparently, too young to keep up with all the bigger trees that have the fall routine figured out.
It looks like today’s precipitation is sliding to our south, which is both good and bad. It’s nice that the horses will get a break from needing to deal with wetness in these cold temperatures. Their natural winter coats are coming in nicely, but their shaggy look quickly flattens out in the rain or wet snow.
The bad part of missing out on some rain or snow is that Paddock Lake is dry and will make for lousy skating this year. The residual growth was almost fluorescent green in the low spots.
My footprint was a result of retrieving the horses’ Jolly Ball that had rolled into the middle of the muddy remains of the “lake.” It’s always interesting to find the ball has been relocated from the spots where I place it, handle up, in hopes of enticing them to play.
We rarely have the privilege of catching them in the act. Occasionally, the ball disappears from the paddock. When it happened one time when the hay field grass was tall, we didn’t find it until the hay mower had sliced into it.
Fourteen Novembers of wonder and joy.
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Third Time
I’m beginning to think the universe is trying to tell us something via large trees crashing to the ground. For the third time in an uncharacteristically short number of weeks (and the second time that I have been able to witness it with my own eyes), a massive compound limb snapped from its trunk and smashed to the ground. This time, it was an oak tree.
What did we do to deserve this? Cyndie and I were walking Asher first thing in the morning when, just to our left, the cracking sound started without any obvious trigger. It wasn’t windy. The huge portion of the tree simply cracked off and smothered everything it landed on with a dramatic, clamorous thrashing.
I didn’t have it in me to spend the day cutting it up, so we ignored it for the rest of the day, but it’s blocking one of our paths through the woods and will need to be dealt with eventually.
When I think about the number of trees that I have recently tented beneath without knowing a thing about the health of the branches above me, this gives me pause. We had no reason to suspect this oak of ours was at risk.
We are both still marveling over the fact that we were standing right there to witness it as it fell.
I don’t know what lesson I should be taking from these trees crashing to the ground lately, but it is getting a little creepy. It’s also getting a little less calming to take long ‘forest bathing’ walks through our trees.
Since things commonly happen in threes, we are hoping this will be the end of whatever exercise this is that has us cutting up limbs and branches with chainsaws.
When we bought this property twelve and a half years ago, I had no idea how much work it would be to tend to the forested acres. The more time I spend in these woods, the more I learn about how often trees and branches fall to the ground for a variety of mysterious reasons.
I never expected so many of them to be this darned big.
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Wintervale Big Trees 12 and 13
[John and Cyndie are supposed to be home by now from vacation in Iceland with our friends, Barb & Mike. I decided to give myself one extra day before getting back to live posts because my original tree survey left out two beauties that I added later and I was on a roll when scheduling the big trees before we left.]
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The twelfth tree is an oak located outside the sunroom windows. It stands in the middle of our septic system drain field. It seems unperturbed by that fact.
Measuring a circumference of 134 inches, this oak is calculated to be approximately 200 years old.
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The thirteenth tree is the oak beside the driveway up by the house where delivery trucks have snapped low-hanging branches and stick debris constantly litters the pavement.
Measuring a circumference of 137 inches, this oak is calculated to be approximately 200 years old.
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Wintervale Big Trees 11
[John and Cyndie are currently on vacation in Iceland with our friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus. While we are gone, I am featuring the results of the big tree survey I did in August on our property.]
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The eleventh tree is an oak located between the kennel and the woodshed. My brother, Elliott climbed into this tree with ropes to trim some branches for me many years ago. That meant an awful lot to me. What a gift.
This tree is the second largest of the survey, just one inch bigger than its neighbor, the tenth tree by the kennel, and six inches smaller in circumference than the Mother Tree.
Measuring a circumference of 139 inches, this oak is calculated to be approximately 200 years old.
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Wintervale Big Trees 10
[John and Cyndie are currently on vacation in Iceland with our friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus. While we are gone, I am featuring the results of the big tree survey I did in August on our property.]
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The tenth tree is an oak located up the hill from the mother tree. It is beside the kennel where Delilah used to look up into it and bark after squirrels she knew must be up there, whether they were, or not. That drove me nuts.
Measuring a circumference of 138 inches, this oak is calculated to be approximately 200 years old.
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Wintervale Big Trees 9
[John and Cyndie are currently on vacation in Iceland with our friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus. While we are gone, I am featuring the results of the big tree survey I did in August on our property.]
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The ninth tree brings us back to the oaks again. It also brings us back to the crown jewel tree I’ve already made a reference to in an earlier post. It is the tree we are calling the Mother Tree. It is deserving of another look. A year ago this tree dropped so many acorns we started referring to the trail that passes beneath it as “ball bearing alley.”
Measuring a circumference of 145 inches, this mother oak is calculated to be approximately 220 years old.
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Wintervale Big Trees 6
[John and Cyndie are currently on vacation in Iceland with our friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus. While we are gone, I am featuring the results of the big tree survey I did in August on our property.]
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The sixth tree is an oak located in the woods behind the labyrinth. It lost a large limb a few years back and the debris from that still hasn’t been fully processed and cleared from beneath it. I fear the cleanup is one of the things on the “todo” list that may never truly get done to completion.
Measuring a circumference of 125 inches, this oak is calculated to be approximately 180 years old.
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Wintervale Big Trees 5
[John and Cyndie are currently on vacation in Iceland with our friends, Barb & Mike Wilkus. While we are gone, I am featuring the results of the big tree survey I did in August on our property.]
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The fifth tree is an oak that is not that far from the first two I measured but on the other side of the trail, closer toward the house. It is referenced as “leaner” because the trunk is growing in a distinct lean away from the trail.
Measuring a circumference of 122 inches, this oak is calculated to be approximately 175 years old.
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Mother Oak
We will be driving home today, leaving the comfort of lake-cooled air to barrel straight into the much-ballyhooed heat wave. I look forward to spending time among our big trees in the cool(er) shade beneath their canopies. Last week, I did a survey of many of our largest tree trunks to verify measurements of the circumferences.
The largest reading was 145” around a giant old oak that we already consider the mother tree of those woods.
From that measurement, calculation puts the tree’s age in the 220-230 years range.
If that’s accurate, it means that the tree started growing in that spot around 1800. The first thought this brings to my mind is curiousity over how it escaped being cut for lumber back when that was the primary industry. The second thought is that my ancestors were cutting and milling lumber in the county in the 1850s to 1880s.
I wonder if logs from this land we now own were ever skidded to the Isabelle Creek valley and the mills my ancestors, Stephen Hays and Joseph Sleeper worked near Esdaile.
I’ve been reading about the lumber industry in that era, including lumber baron David Joyce (1825-1904) and his son, William (1860-1909). I’ve reached the point in history when they were establishing Shell Lake, WI as a major hub of production.
It’s added perspective about a town we have driven through for decades on our way to and from our lake place. Shell Lake seems like a nice little family-vacation-on-a-lake spot these days, primarily due to the many RV campers parked along the shore.
Contemplating lumber history has me also feeling added perspective about our mother oak at home that our “Middle Trail” passes beside. My mind jumps to the 1800s when I look at it and contemplate its start. I find myself comparing it to the new saplings we keep discovering in our North Loop field.
Will they survive to still be around in 200 years?
I have a feeling the current heat wave will have me missing our lake today, despite my appreciation for being back among the big trees in our woods. No cutting of lumber is planned on our property any time soon.
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Numbing Cold
It is cold outside again. It might be ridiculous trying to parse the subtle differences in how cold feels between tens of degrees further below the freezing point, but they are there. When temperatures drop to single digits (F) or negative numbers, the impact on activities at the barn doesn’t feel all that subtle. Extremes of cold tend to complicate things that are usually simple.
Yesterday, there was an incredibly quiet calmness during the long pauses between snowmobile traffic on the local trail that passes our southern border. There was no breeze and the birds and squirrels were out of sight and silent. With the horses standing completely still, the quiet was dramatic.
Silence like that outdoors is almost enough to distract me from the numbness developing in my fingers and toes. Sometimes I forget. Is it better to be able to feel the sting of cold in my fingers or the absence of any feeling at all?
I couldn’t resist lingering against the gate with the horses for a while after all my work was done, enjoying the peacefulness despite my body growing ever more chilled.
The sun had come up and was beaming brightly through the clear sky above, complementing the cold air with its cheery rays.
On my way back up to the house, I stopped under an oak tree and looked up at the remnants of leaves beneath the deep blue sky.
As if taking note of my hands being out of my chopper mitts, old man winter brought up a little breeze for variety. At -2°F, numbness returned in a blink.
Stepping back inside to the warmth of the house on mornings like this is such a wonderful relief. Top that off with a plate of fresh waffles Cyndie just prepared and my numb fingers are suddenly nothing but a fading memory.
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Relative Something 