Massive Old Man of the Woods
Perhaps, when compared to all the dancers on the world’s stage on that particular day, it was of little import. But on our farm, last week’s mini-blast nonetheless cut a deadly rug through the woods.
This has been the spring of many odd and intense storms: The recent eruption that dropped an inch of rain here and seven inches less than a dozen miles away. The storm whose gusts knocked out power in 800 residences in nearby Kingston, yet hardly sent a breeze down Paint Rock way.
The storm last week was a whirling dervish that came through with such force that the windows and walls shuddered, the trees swayed, and at least one neighbor was left looking for the roof of his barn. It arrived as an unexpected guest, late last Saturday night. Rain blowing at the horizontal wetted the front porch wall to the five-foot mark. Our lights flickered and went out for a few hours.
The storm, spending its energy in a fury, moved through the valley in less than an hour and then petered out over the eastern ridge. The following morning’s blue skies revealed no damage but a few small branches down around the house and a porch swept clean of chairs and rug. Only did my walk through the back forty to forage for mushrooms later that day tell the true tale.
Up the lane, in the heart of the wood, four modest oaks, each approaching their century celebration, lay in a tangle across the roadbed. Two reds and two whites, branches intertwined as if clutching at each other for support in their last moments.
Further into the wood, on a west-sloping ridge, lay a giant white oak. Assessing age by diameter is difficult, since trees can stay small for many decades before exploding in growth when the opportunity arises, often at the death of a parent weakened by age or illness. But this oak was twice the diameter of the other trees, fully mature, now laid low by this localized event, this small storm of no consequence.
Giant old Red Oak
Across a fence into the upper pasture, on opposite sides of a field, two of the most ancient oaks on the farm lay toppled, majestic sentinels of the wood now sprawled like drunks on a bar floor. One red and one white, both already anchoring their communities at the nation’s founding, they somehow looked out of place, prone instead of upright, in their slow death.
These old ones now await, in a condition of helpless indignity, men who will scramble up their sides, hack off limbs, and saw up their trunks, before carting the bits off for the beneficiaries’ own purposes — the oaks’ final will and testament ignored, that they may lay in the ground they lived on and with for so long, their utility reduced into so many cords of firewood and saw logs and days of labor.
No one will miss them but I and the other residents of the backwoods. I, for their solid, reassuring presence as I pull up my tractor into their shade for a midday lunch. The squirrels, for the mast harvest of massive proportions, a feast epic in tales to be told through the generations.
They were only seven oaks of varied age on a small farm in a small valley, located in the lower end of one of the 95 counties of one of the 50 states of one country on this planet. And now they are gone.
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Reading this weekend: Meditations on Hunting, by Jose Ortega y Gasset
After every storm, I go out and check on the two giant oaks and one giant black walnut that guard the patch of land that we try try to husband…so far, so good. But I know that it only takes one little unexpected burst to change all that. All of life is a cycle of birth and transformation through death, and we that live close to nature are regularly reminded of that.
Well said, Harriet. I fear much of this is down to the extreme drought of last year. The large red oak was already beginning to show signs of decline last fall. And I’m sure many of the others were stressed and in a weakened state. Just waiting for a good shove, which they got.
My best,
Is there a reason why these fallen trees shouldn’t lay in the same woods where they once stood? Are they blocking paths or causing inconvenience? I suppose there is a small financial reward for turning them into cordwood or similar interest in their resource value.
What an excellent question, Brutus. And, it is one I may have to come back to in a post. In the meantime, David has responded well, in his usual pragmatic fashion, with many good points from his unique down-under perspective.
Let me add a bit with two points: one, we all use up resources each day, whether roads, air conditioning, paper products, etc. etc. Two, one of the purposes and goals of the small farm is to use and make purposeful the produce of this land within its capability to carry. So, fallen timber is both a gift and challenge to use wisely. And, yes, one wise use is to do nothing.
In the end we will use this natural harvest almost wholly on the farm.
Some of the crowns of the trees will be left in place for habitat and others will be mulched to use in our gardens and to grow mushrooms. The limbs will be converted into firewood. In exchange for the donated labor of a neighbor, we will split the firewood, some for our use and some for his. With the five smaller oaks I’ll section the trunks into nine foot logs. These will be cut into lumber on our sawmill. That lumber will be used to build and repair fencing and outbuilding on the farm.
The trunks of the larger oaks we could sell, being too large for our mill. But the price we’d get would, in all likelihood, be nominal when you factor in the work and hauling. So, they will rest where they fell and return to the soil.
Like David and his partner in Australia, we have a commitment to farm in a way that is in contrast to the dominant paradigm. Sometimes we do well and other times we could stand a little improvement. But using the trees in the fashion described will benefit the two tenants on this farm. And, it will benefit the other trees. As David mentions these deaths will open up space for the children to grow rapidly.
Think of it like a harvest of buffalo each year. We are harvesting a select number of trees allowing room for continued growth of the forest. Modest returns in order to ensure a long term resource. Or, we could go after the “herd” with machine like efficiency, clear-cut it all for short-term gains and no long-term use.
cheers,
A big diameter oak trunk of what looks like nice, straight wood in the photos might sell for a bit here, Brian. It would be an exotic here, of course, which would add to its value. I was speaking to a bunch of furniture makers the other day about what they would like from farm grown timber. Grown on a farm in North America would be one popular characteristic 🙂
It is the age old problem of the rural farmer, that of getting the produce to the market. We moved a 12 foot 56-inch diameter white oak log to a sawmill. They offered $175. In firewood alone it was worth a $1000. I’ve mistrusted these operators ever since.
That does sound very low. There’s a bunch of small scale sawmills operating in Victoria that specialise in slabbing, making boards etc from larger logs like that. One of our native species – redgum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis – can grow very wide with lovely timber for making tables, furniture etc A Lucas mill with a slabbing attachment can process a big diameter log like the one you mention. And there’s various woodworking fora/networks/ebay/Gumtree locally where specialist timber can be sold outside the standard timber supply chain. Do you have a local agroforestry group or something along those lines at the local University? They might be able to help. Or a local woodworking group might have suggestions.
Shame to cut up a nice log like that for firewood.
Here’s an example of the sort of small sawmill I was thinking of, Brian.
http://ambercreeksawmilling.com.au/
Dan does interesting stuff with solid timber. He’s currently harvesting some farm grown bluegum (Eucalyptus globulus) from a member of my agroforestry network (and paying a better price than the grower would have received through the standard timber supply chain) and milling the bluegum for solid timber used as framing for a new cidery cellar door in Sth Gippsland. Over the years Dan’s milled some very big logs from salvage cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) and pine (Pinus radiata) from old shelterbelts in the area. We have some old pine and cypress shelterbelt trees on our block that are similar diameter to the large oak log you mention but they’re old, rough, unmanaged trees that have grown in a single row without silviculture so full of occlusions and possibly rot. Dan would love big oak logs like yours that have grown nice and straight in a woodlot environment. But getting it from the south of the US to Fish Creek in Victoria would be a challenge 🙂
Folks like Dan may supply into markets like this one:
http://mullumcreek.com.au/app/uploads/2017/05/Timber-Products-Guide-17-05-17.pdf
Do you have similar sawmills and markets in your area? Does Knoxville have a sustainability/maker sector?
Impressive timber framing operation at Amber Creek, David. I’ll need to dig a bit more into other options. Thanks for steering me in a different direction.
We’re constantly surprised at how often trees come down at our place. And this often involves a fence-line as Brian found with his recent windfalls 🙂 We have a load of acacias planted including Blackwood (A. melanoxylon, https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/Wood-Species/species-blackwood, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_melanoxylon) and Silver Wattle (A. dealbata, https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/Wood-Species/silver-wattle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_dealbata). Silver Wattle is a pioneer species evolved to colonise bare land, hold the soil together, pump in some nitrogen and then die relatively young. When they fall over in a forest environment they provide a load of habitat for various invertebrates, fungi etc which in turn are food for other species. But if we left all the windfall we would soon have woodlots that were choked with fallen logs and impossible to work. And in our environment this fallen timber would be fuel for wildfires. So if the fallen trees are large enough we cut timber but if they are still too young we use them for firewood, leaving the leave and small twigs to rot.
We also have a load of eucalypt species planted. Again, we sometimes lose a tree in high winds. Pruned trees – we aim to prune to 6m to encourage clearwood which usually is more valuable – can be prone to windfall as they have a clear trunk with the canopy at the top. I’ve been told that with pruned trees the force of the wind is concentrated at the end of a lever in the form of the trunk which can encourage windfall. Thinning trees in a woodlot has to be done with caution as the individual trees can now be exposed to more wind.
If a tree goes down in our riparian zone plantings we will put the crown and sometimes the trunk into the creek. This provides a load of habitat in the creek and because those wet gullies stay damp the fire risk is minimised.
Brian’s fallen trees have opened up space for young trees to grow. And timber from the fallen trees might find use for centuries in furniture or other uses. Trees are wonderful.
Nice summary, David. We will use some of the brush in our ponds for fish habitat.
How was your honey harvest this season?
Thanks.
Re honey season, generally crap in Melbourne and poor before end of year in Sth Gippsland. Wet spring and early summer. Better in our late summer and autumn. Not sure what they were feeding on but the colony we put down there did well. All packed down for our winter. Still quite dry and sunny in Victoria despite now officially in our winter. Bit dry for tree planting although I think I’ll start this week with some in the gullies and wetter areas.
Hope they all come through the winter just fine. We lost three hives last winter, overall Tennessee lost 80% of their hives last year due to the drought. So we began the spring with just the one hive. We added a couple of packages and caught two swarms in the valley. So we are moving into summer with five hives, all in fine form. We will harvest from the one surviving hive and leave the others alone for the year.
Hello Brian,
Excellent essay on the loss of special oak trees. We are facing a more ongoing problem here. The emerald ash borer is moving in and will eventually take all the Ash trees. In addition, the Beech virus is attacking the Beech forest with great ferocity now.
Not as dramatic as a storm, but disheartening at best to watch them wither and die, similar to old friends and neighbors that have passed on.
It is more than a bit scary to start toting up all the various threats to our woodlands.