Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
I spent a good part of last Saturday morning sawing and hauling firewood, a white oak that had died and fallen. Normally a tree that comes down of its own accord (storm damage not withstanding - and as an aside we didn't lose any trees in the big storm 2 weeks ago!) can be diseased and the wood rather spongy and useless for heat. But this tree had had a different experience.
The irrigation pond near the tree was carved from a natural swale about 10 years ago. "No, no, Froz," I hear you say... "Zin de Froz is made from unirrigated grapevines! I have heard you say this. Why did you lie to us?" Dear, insolent reader, while planting new vines they are irrigated as they establish a healthy root system. By the time they are in production they rely completely on water in, and grant the wine the flavor from, the soil.
As I was saying about trees before being so rudely interrupted...
Constructing the berms around the pond can be very disruptive to the oaks. I don't think damage to the periphery of the roots causes as much of a problem as building up the soil near the base of the tree, at the core of its root system. To our disappointment only slightly diminished by realistic expectation the leaves on this tree turned brown and fell early a couple of years ago. I vaguely remember it happening in early July but it was bare by harvest I'm certain. It looked quite dead.
A plum tree grew in the backyard of my fraternity in college. One night a visitor to a rather chaotic party behaved quite miserably by whacking at its trunk with the hatchet from the fireplace. It was this experience that led to my conscious effort hence to minimize the presence of obnoxious drunks with sharp objects in my life. This poor tree was mortally wounded but the following growing season, its last, produced glorious bounty the likes of which we had never seen. In spring it erupted in a blaze of white flowers and by midsummer its branches heaved to carry their fruit. By September it went to sleep and was never heard from again.
I thought of this plum the next year as our apparently only ailing oak opened the season with a lush canopy, delivered a profusion of acorns, then let go of life. I was also reminded of both of these trees when I read this story yesterday about a newly discovered palm tree species that flowers for the first and only time at about 100 years old, killing itself in the effort. Living things' disposition to the sentiment "By god, if I'm going to die I'm having me some amazing sex before I go" runs pretty deep, methinks.
Curing firewood is an easier process here than in North Carolina. The humid air back east takes at least 2-3 years to properly cure a dead tree. And the best practice if you have a live tree come down is to leave the foliage on; the stomata will keep open as the leaves continue to photosynthesize, literally pumping the water out of the tree. Only then is it the best time to limb the tree, saw and split it, then cure for 2-3 years. Here, one summer adequately prepares any dead wood for the fireplace.
I suppose it would have been a nice gesture to collect some of the acorns, make flour, and bake bread the way the Mi-Wuk did here years ago. Kind of like those magnificent plums. There are even some grinding holes down by the creek. This could yet be an interesting experience. But lore has it from an old Mi-Wuk friend of my uncle, who remembered acorn bread being made by her grandmother, that acorn bread - even expertly prepared - is thoroughly foul matter and no-one in their right mind would ever actually choose to eat it over another edible substance. So it's not real high on my list.
Instead, for now, thanks, oak, for keeping us warm and I hope it was good for you.
From my visits to Mi-Wuk sites, I vaguely remember that acorn bread, inexpertly prepared, can be toxic.
Posted by: Jackmormon at January 19, 2008 11:12 AMMan oh man, using a white oak for firewood sure seems like a pity to me. Were there not any salvageable pieces you could use for lumber? It's such beautiful wood, and resistant to decay.
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at January 19, 2008 11:35 AM3: The white oaks out here are not the same as the white oaks with which I'm familiar back east, and to which you may be referring. They do not grow straight at all, having very broard, flat, meandering crowns, and are very gnarly and knotty. These are not Quercus alba, but just known as 'white' because of the color of the wood and as opposed to the 'live oaks' with which they share the habitat. These have very little woodworking potential.
Posted by: froz gobo at January 19, 2008 11:55 AMOh, I see. I retract that it seems like a pity.
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at January 19, 2008 12:08 PMYeah, I think that acorns are actually incredibly bitter, which is why one had to boil the crap out of them to make them edible. Or so I've raed.
Posted by: bitchphd at January 19, 2008 03:03 PMA plum tree grew in the backyard of my fraternity in college. One night a visitor to a rather chaotic party behaved quite miserably by whacking at its trunk with the hatchet from the fireplace. It was this experience that led to my conscious effort hence to minimize the presence of obnoxious drunks with sharp objects in my life. This poor tree was mortally wounded but the following growing season, its last, produced glorious bounty the likes of which we had never seen. In spring it erupted in a blaze of white flowers and by midsummer its branches heaved to carry their fruit. By September it went to sleep and was never heard from again.
This is the most moving account of the death of foliage I have ever read. Well done!
Posted by: junior at January 20, 2008 09:29 AMThat is indeed a great passage about the plum trees Froz. There's a Su Dongpo poem that I can't find online that uses plum trees blooming alone in winter as its central metaphor (they're one of the first trees to bloom each year, often when there's still snow on the ground, and the flowers appear before any leaves).
Yesterday on my way to the farmstand I work at, the temperature was right about 32 Fahrenheit and there was a beautiful little plum tree covered in blooms that hadn't been there the week before. I immediately thought of that poem (when I lived in China and was trying to learn to read characters I had a neat little book that had Su Dongpo's poems in Chinese characters, in pinyin, in direct English translation, and in idiomatic English translation all on the same two facing pages, so I'm more familiar with many of his poems than your average roundeye). And then later I came home and read Froz's beautiful description of the plum tree.
I'm sure this is firm evidence of intelligent design or kismet or that Obama is indeed the Antichrist. Or something. Yeah.
Posted by: M/tch M/lls at January 20, 2008 11:52 AMOr that apostropher does, indeed, have a tail. Thanks, all.
Posted by: froz gobo at January 20, 2008 12:03 PMI, too, am moved by both tales (plum and oak). It makes me incredibly sad to know that the plum tree was done in by a drunken idiot, that somehow the tree knew its life was coming to a close, and that as a last heave, gave everything it had to a final bounty.
That's poetry...
Posted by: Alena at January 20, 2008 05:37 PMa beautiful little plum tree covered in blooms
Yes, M/tch, it's the brave and enduring plum that blooms early, heralding that midwinter is passed. It's the coldest weekend of the year here, but the buds are swelling on the three small trees I keep.
They have a great fragrance (and a range of color through white, yellow and red), and the tree is usually in bloom for a couple of weeks (unlike the Yoshino cherry blossoms, which come and go in a blaze of pink - that the Japanese likened to their samurai and kamikaze pilots).
Here's a few haiku to ume/plums:
Hattori Ransetsu:
One plum blossom
brings the warmth
one step closer
Issa:
The blossoming plum!
Today the fires of hell
are all empty
Matsuo Basho:
To the scent of plum blossoms
The rising sun calls forth a mist
on the mountain path
Takahama Kyoshi:
Crimson courses
through the trunk of
this red plum tree
Buson:
Fallen red blossoms
from plum trees burst into flame
among the horse turds
My cherry tree bloomed out beautifully last spring, in early April. Then we had two weeks of less than 25 deg. weather. So the very few cherries it produced were small and malformed, and dropped off early.
A LiveJournal friend advised that a) it didn't harm the tree, they're adapted for it and b) next year (this year now) we'll likely have what is called a "Mast Year," where the fruit trees are over-abundant with fruit. I'm hoping.
Very sad about the oak, though. At least you have firewood.
Posted by: Paula Murray at January 23, 2008 10:05 PM