Dead Trees in the Dirty Ground...

The effects of the drought continue to make themselves know around my property. I have been watching a cedar that seems to be half dead and a big pine out behind my outbuildings on the little wooded patch of my property just suddenly died this week.

Someone told me it takes a lot to kill a cedar. I guess this is a lot. There is actually another one closer to the house that is half dead but there are not too many limbs that could fall on something. This one could take out electricity. It's small enough that with the help of a son, a son in law or a brother in law we could at least shear all dead limbs. I think once I counted 19 cedars on my property. Some that make a sort of cedar cave that serves as a privacy shield for my back deck have had quite a few lower dead limbs for years. Occasionally I trim when I need materials for a wretchedly ethnic percussion instrument I've invented or a spear. A few are actually beginning to look like they could be walking sticks. 

Several years ago I lost an oak tree near the house and I had to employ professionals to take it down. They told me it was killed by a fungus and advised that anytime I cut a limb or knocked the bark off an oak to treat with hydrogen peroxide to prevent the fungus. That oak and these cedars all had roots disturbed several years ago during the installation of a new septic system and the fill in of the old one.          

Speaking of several years ago and professionals I had a big pine die close to the house. This was 25 or 30 years ago.  A friend said he had a neighbor that could cut it. I said OK and a drunk Cajun guy came over and laid it down as pretty as you please. I cut it up, piled and burnt myself and paid the drunk guy $50. We were both happy. The debris made a fire so big the other backyard trees exhibited signs of singeing for years.  

Here's a big pine behind an outbuilding which I have been letting return to the Earth for a few years. I'm not worried about that but it could go toward my tool barn which has been starting to lean so it might be a toss up which one lasts the longest.     

This pine is not in a easy place to work so I estimate it would be a pricy job to cut. There is another pine and I wish I could have documented the year it died but it's been standing quite awhile. Every time there is a big blow I go out to see if it fell and so far still standing. As large as the latest big pine is I suspect it might stand till after I'm gone. Old dead trees like this ensure a good woodpecker and owl population. There are probably a few critters that I never see also making a good living off the rotten wood.  

I might get my son the engineer to do calculations on direction and length of fall. He's good at that kind of stuff. Maybe I'll get someone to fell it and let it lay so it returns to the soil.