Another Giant Lost

One of the saddest things for me on the farm is to lose a large tree.  We have lost so many over the last several years, from wind or lightning, that I couldn't even count them, giant oaks, sycamores, sweet gums, hickories, maples,walnuts, cherries...so many.  At first, it was always a shock.  What?! That giant tree?  Down?  I don't believe it! One year, in one storm, we lost over 30 large trees. It was more then a shock.  It was a tragedy.  By now, I've come to expect it.  It's just the way it is.  Giant trees fall.  But gosh, I sure hate it.  I especially hate it when it happens to an especially favorite tree. 

This was one of mine. 

Click to enlarge and see the full beauty of this sycamore tree.

It's not a huge tree, but quite a bit larger then it looks in this picture.  It was a sycamore that stood a bit off by itself just as you enter the bottoms along our farm road.  In the summer, (still looking for a summer picture), it was full and shady and gorgeous.  In the winter, as it is in the photo above, it was even more beautiful, white and tall and reaching against the bright blue sky.  I loved this tree.

Here is my favorite sycamore today. 

Sad.  A mild windstorm was all.  We didn't have any other damage.  Just this one tree.  So sad.  The view is so different now, as we come around that corner...so much smaller then it was.  The big ones grow so slowly, and there are less of them than the cedars and other scrub trees.  As they fall, these smaller scrub trees take their place and the landscape becomes completely different.  Each of the old ones is so special to me.  What will our farm look like in 10 years?  20?  I can't imagine it with another 50 or 100 old-growth trees down.  But fall they will, as they do every year.  There is nothing we can do to stop it. I think I'm going to have to start protecting some of the oak, hickory and sycamore saplings we have.  I'll put some wire around them, transplant some to better locations, cut the cedars from around them to provide more light and water.  It may not make a difference for many, many years.  But it's all I can do to try and preserve the beauty that I used to take for granted.  I am so grateful that I knew this lovely tree for the time that I did.  I will miss it for years to come, every time I turn that corner and see nothing but sky straight ahead instead of that pretty white bark.