The day started normally enough - I was working on cutting off casings in the hall for the upcoming tile installation and making thresholds for the bathroom and basement doorways. Later in the day, we planned to move the stove into the kitchen, which will finish that room. My unofficial goal is to get the first floor nearly done (excluding painting the front and back doors) by Labor Day.
I was going to put my tablesaw outside to reduce the amount of dust in the house, but it started to drizzle. I worked in the basement, but could see through the sliding glass door that an intense storm was rolling in. I remarked to Maggie that the wind was really howling and driving rain horizontally. I am not sure if I missed the sound because of the tablesaw, but Maggie called downstairs to say a tree had fallen. We have almost 50 acres of trees, so I was not sure which one she was talking about. I came upstairs and looked out the window with her. At first I thought it was one of our yard maple trees. I realized that there was a big gap where the White Oak sat on the corner of our yard - it was basically gone.
The worst of the storm was over in less than 10 minutes, but that was all it took to topple a 100+ year old oak tree. We went outside in the trailing drizzle to survey the damage. The storm had also knocked off a branch from our large willow tree and into our driveway. But the main victim was the White Oak. A portion of the tree lay in the road, but fortunately it left just enough room for cars to drive around. The oak took out part of a Sugar Maple that we had tapped this spring and a smaller oak that I had hoped would replace the larger oak someday when it gracefully yielded its tenure. The big old oak was not having any of that.
As we looked over the debris, we saw that the tree had broken off near its base, exposing a rotten core. Seeing that lack of structure, it was surprising that it had not fallen sooner. Maggie began to collect smaller branches and haul them to the burn pile. I went to the garage for the chain saw. Chain saws are the bane of my tool collection. They are crucial when needed, but unless used frequently they can be a bear to start. My nearly brand-new Stihl took several minutes of pulling to get it to fire up, which is more exhausting than actually using it. We chopped up the willow branch, and realized it was a lot of brush to haul by hand. We have a trailer, which at the moment was being used to store our washer and dryer until the aforementioned tile is completed. Those were unloaded and the trailer was pressed into service to haul brush. We got the driveway and road cleared in the 90 degree heat by early afternoon. After a few hours, we were too worn out to continue and we still had other things to do. I ran into town to rent an appliance dolly before the hardware stored closed to get our stove into the house. After that task, we cleaned up, returned the dolly, and stopped in town for an early dinner.
The tree is yielding good oak firewood, but much more than we will use. Maggie posted an ad on Craigslist to see if someone would take the tree away in exchange for the wood. The country barter system at work. I suggested putting a small 'free wood' sign on the truck.
I will miss that tree. I loved walking to it in the evening and looking out from its shade across the road at the sunset. But one thing a farm does is teach an appreciation of the seasons and that the landscape around us can seem timeless, until it isn't.
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