A Giant Falls

The remains of a giant oak after the storm.

 

I'm reminded of the old philosophical question,"If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" The top of one of the four old oaks in our back yard snapped off yesterday during a horrific thunderstorm. I was so busy closing windows and mopping up the water that was coming in, that I never noticed the moment when the tree fell, or if it made any noise! With the sound of the howling storm, neither did Herb. After more than an inch of rain falling horizontally and our aluminum garden bench sliding again from one side of the deck to the other, hail began to fall--pea shooter size and up, pelted everything until the deck was white with hailstones.

It wasn't until after the storm had passed and I went out on the deck to pick up the potted plants that had been knocked and scattered around that I looked up and saw the tree trunk--what a sight!

 

The oak tree last fall

 

This was the tallest of the four oak trees in the strip of woods at the back of our property. The birds loved to perch on it, woodpeckers and perhaps owls nested in the cavities in the trunk. To see the trunk sheared off like that was quite a shock! I had expected the tree to eventually lose its top, but more gradually, big branch by branch. We had several large branches come down from another of the oaks back there last winter, and it was shocking to see that tree lose about fifteen feet of its top branches in one fell swoop. Having this one lose the entire top in one storm was mind-boggling!

 

Top half of the oak tree.

Even more amazing was that fortunately, it fell towards the back slope instead of into my garden. This morning I went out to survey the damage, and found the top half of the oak tree just a few feet from the remaining trunk. You can clearly see how the wind twisted and sheared the trunk where it had been hollowed out. As it fell, it must have struck the dead hickory tree that had been there for several years and brought it down too.

Fallen oak trunk and dead hickory trunk.

Perhaps it was the dead hickory that checked the descent of the oak, helping both massive trunks to stay within this area. I was afraid that the trees might be blocking the drainage ditch at the back, but again fortunately, the trunks seem to have fallen at such an angle that they didn't block the drainage.

Upper part of the oak tree.

The drainage ditch.

I'm so grateful that the damage wasn't worse, and that we won't have to pay someone to cut and clear out a big tree from our yard. Back there, the dead trunks can rot in place undisturbed without causing any problems for us or the neighborhood. As the wood rots, it will feed fungi and other organisms to enrich the soil.

Strangely shaped puff ball fungi.

Speaking of fungi, I came across this strange vase-shaped fungi that I think is a puffball fungus while I was poking about in the woods. There are so many different species of puffball fungi that I can't venture a guess as to which it might be. I also came across some reindeer moss flourishing back there and some lovely wood asters (now Symphyotrichum genus).

Reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina)

Wood asters (Symphyotrichum cordifolium)

With the big oak gone, there will be a lot more sunshine in that part of the woods, and there are several other smaller trees that will eventually fill in the space. Nature is ever-evolving, but it will take me some time to get used to the change of backdrop to my garden.