Back in August we had to do a week long 1400 mile road trip and when we got home on Saturday we were greeted with this view.
The big tree next to the bridge lost a bunch of big branches.
Two big trees next to the back creek fell over.
The big oak tree in the back lost a limb and the tree I had my trail cam mounted on fell over. But the worst casualty was the big beech along the back fence line, it broke right at the big knot hole.
It seems that on Tuesday of that week there was a late afternoon thunderstorm and apparently it generated some really strong localized sheer winds. Our back woods seemed to be the center of the whole thing and it covered about a quarter mile square area. Our neighbor next door lost a couple trees by his pool and some limbs and the house across the road and back towards town lost a bunch of branches from the trees lining their driveway.
Mary and I spent a couple days cutting up most of the stuff in the front but we had to have the tree guys come in to do the rest. I’ll tell you one thing those mafia guys got it right when they decided to use tree chippers to get rid of bodies. Those things are amazing at how fast they can eat a tree.
When they were done we kept the leftovers to make chairs or something out of.
When my high school friend Jack was here last spring he emailed a poem back about this tree, because of the fact it had grown around the barb wire many years ago. When I sent him an email about the tree falling over I included a poem of my own. I’ll reprint it here since I’m sure it will be required reading in all Jr. High English classes very soon.
To a Beech
Twas, because all poems should start with twas, the afternoon of Tuesday
The ominous cumulonimbus signaling an ill wind could blow.
There was a stillness roaring through the woods
A sense of calm that had the inhabitants on edge
A sense of foreboding that couldn’t be absorbed by the tranquility
When in a instant it hit, the roaring gust, the upending blast.
“Holy smoke” the parson yelled
well not really
There was no smoke and there was no parson. This poem just needed dramatic dialog
The trees and branches, with no one around fell to the ground maybe making a sound.
The two at the creek sitting on the bedrock just blew over after standing for decades
And the mighty beech having absorbed the wires decades ago that tried to fence it in,
Dun fall over.
After standing for maybe a hundred or more years now is just a collection of wood laying on the ground
One can only hope that before it fell that there was some kind of tree copulation that might produce
The son of a beech
Walt Whitman holds nothing to me.
