Trees From My Present

My blog entry yesterday was supposed to be about some of the trees that we have here on our farm, but it somehow morphed into trees of my past.  I started out by saying "I love trees" and felt compelled to explain why, which got me to talking about the big old trees that were in my yard when I was growing up and how these made such an indelible impression on me as a child.


So, today I will try to get back on track.  Our five acres is long and narrow.  Our house sits in the middle.  There is a 5-car garage with a small office at one end and a metal shop building on the property as well.  These are located near the house.  Tom uses the land to the east of these for his gardens and I have a few raised beds between the garage and the shop.  (Please note that we do not have 5 cars!  Most of the garage is used for storage of equipment, potting soil and other odds and ends.)


There are very few trees on the 5 acres.  But, there are several large oak and pecan trees just west of the house.  These are wonderful to provide much needed shade in the summer time and provide a great place for our grandkids to play when they come visit.  Here is a picture of them.

Last year we noticed that a limb on one of the trees looked like it was dying.  It was not unusual to find pieces of bark or branches from that limb on the ground after a windy day.  One day we even saw a Pileated Woodpecker pecking on the limb.  These are very large woodpeckers that we usually do not see around here.  Here is a good link to read about them.   

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pileated_Woodpecker/id/ac

This link indicates that Stillwater is on the edge of their normal range.  So, I think we were very fortunate to have been able to see this bird in action.   At any rate, the Pileated was literally attacking this dead limb causing huge chunks of wood to fall to the ground!   And,we became concerned that the limb might break and fall on one of the grandkids while they were playing under the trees.  Since our chainsaw is on the blink, we asked our son-in-law if he could bring his up and cut the limb off for us.  Here is what it looked like after it was cut from the tree.  

You can see that about half the limb was rotten while the other half was still in good shape.  So, it might have been a good while before the limb was weakened sufficiently to fall on its own.  But, it is a relief to have it gone and not have to worry about it falling on someone.