Sunday, January 17, 2016

The Old Oak Tree

      I am blessed to have several huge oak trees on my property. Sadly last June one of my favorites fall over after we had several days of heavy rain. The reason this one was a favorite was that I had a tree house in it when I was little and it was huge then. The property was originally my Great Grandparents and my parents and I lived with them for several years after I was born before Dad built a home on the property. So I've lived my whole life within a couple of 100 yards of this tree. I measured the circumstance and and calculated the diameter to a little over 4'. By counting the growth rings it was somewhere between 150 and 175 years old.


 
I had stopped sawing when I took this pictures because I had hit something in the tree and dulled the chain on my saw. After we got the tree apart we looked and saw I had hit a nail about a foot inside the tree. I counted the growth rings and the nail had been there around 45 years. This would have been about the time I had the tree house in it. Probably one I had hammered into it years ago. So 45 years later it came back and bite me and ruined my chain.


It's making a pretty good size pile of firewood. I probably have that much more to split.
The following are from back in June right after it fall. I wasn't home but our neighbors were and confirmed that it make a huge crash. 




I had my wife stand in front of the root ball to give you an idea of how big it was. As a disclaimer please ignore her hair. She had just washed it and fussed that it looked bad.















9 comments:

Linda said...

That was a huge tree! Glad it didn't fall on the building.

Ola said...

I wish i could have hair as long as your wife:)
The tree was really old!

Long Ridge Deer Camp said...

I love stories like that! I go back to my childhood home and still see the old maple where I had my tree house. Sorry you lost such a grand old tree1
Jack

Michelle said...

Pretty cool that it had survived that long!

TexWisGirl said...

hate to lose a great tree like that one! i worry about the old oaks around the house here - if their root systems ever decide to give out, too. had one topple in a storm in the back pasture a few years back and it is still providing firewood - with more back there if i could pay someone to cut it up again. laughed at the 45 yo nail you hit. and waving hi to mrs joe!

KB said...

It's so sad to lose such a huge and old tree. At least it will give you lots of firewood. And perhaps you could make something else from it...

Brooke Higgins said...

My mother said that always take care of your friends. meet and greet luton

Unknown said...

Good to see you safe. A lot of trees fall over there too because of rainy season.
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Meet and Greet Heathrow said...

It is similar to our Chicago as our resort stay experiences wasn't go well because of storm but happy to know that it was good in the end. 
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