Trimming the Tree

Nope, this post has nothing to do with Christmas trees even though it's that time of year.  I know that "Tis the season to be jolly," but jolly wasn't the emotion the other day.  I've posted about this long ago, but let me give you a little back story to set the stage for this event.

My Dad graduated from USL in Lafayette.  The University of Southwestern Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns.  They've since changed the name to UL.  Back when Dad graduated from college, they had the neatest thing ever at USL.  As you walked across the stage to shake the University president's hand and receive your diploma, they would give you a coffee can with some dirt in it and a live oak seedling from one of the old live oaks on campus.

Being in his early 20's, Dad wasn't enthusiastic about this 'gift' or understand the importance of the memories of this little tree.  He brought it home, gave it to his grandmother and forgot about it.  Well, my great-grandmother lived right smack dab in the middle of the town of Kinder at the intersection of Highway 165 and US 190 right across from the police station.  She planted it right in her yard.  And it grew, and GREW, AND GREW.

Sixty years later, it is a big live oak tree, providing beauty and shade.  My great-grandmother's home is long gone, but the tree remains.  Kinder has changed a lot in 60 years.  It boasts a couple more red lights, an overpass over the railroad tracks, a McDonald's and a casino now, but the tree remains the same standing in all it's stately glory, anchoring down the past, holding tightly to nostalgic memories while pointing confidently to the future.

Until last week...

No, the tree didn't get cut down.  It's not ALL gone, but it got one heck of a hair cut.  I remember being in elementary school and getting a haircut that I didn't like.  I was embarrassed to go to school.  I ran and hid - under a car, if I remember correctly.  How long would it take for my haircut to grow out?  Well, the old oak tree got a bad hair cut - a massacre, a butchering, you might say.

You see, there is a sign in the foreground and a larger outdoor advertising sign in the background.  The tree had grown to block the view of the signs.  A big miscommunication happened and someone had Dad's tree trimmed without his permission.  Branches were stacked alongside Highway 165 four feet high.  The tree trimmers gouged a big chunk out of the middle of the tree before passersby in town stopped the crew and asked if they had permission to be doing that since the tree is on private property.  It caused quite a stir.  Telephone calls were made and sincere apologies given, but the damage was done.

The tree is okay, and the bad haircut will eventually grow out - albeit a little longer than it takes for us.  Oh, live oak tree, Oh, live oak tree, how lovely are your branches...

Resurgence of the Anniversary Oak

 

In this post: Planting the Anniversary Oak from back in April 2020 you can read.  It details the events that took place as my bride and I planted the Anniversary Oak tree.  You can read that post by clicking on the link to understand why we call it the Anniversary Oak, but I'll give you a quick summary.

My wife and I will be celebrating our 32nd Anniversary on October 20th.  Tricia and I were engaged in San Antonio, Texas on the River Walk.  After we were engaged, we were walking around 33 years ago and I picked up some acorns from some of the trees in front of the Alamo.  I figured how cool it would be to have a mighty oak tree to remind us of the strength of a good marriage.  I was able to get one of the acorns to germinate.  The tree grew to be about two and a half feet tall in a pot we had outside our apartment in Houston.  Then someone pulled it out of the pot and it died!

Several years ago, we returned to San Antonio and I got another handful of acorns and got another one to germinate.  This one was about 3 feet tall.  We picked out a good spot in the yard for it, the perfect spot.  It was doing fine, BUT stopped growing and lost all it's leaves.  Before you knew it, it was dead!  It made us so sad to see the tree with no leaves, barren and dead.    I wanted to give it every chance to rejuvenate, but the day came when, regrettably, I had to break it off at the bottom.  I just left the roots in the ground.  Looking at the broken off tree, sure enough the inside of the little tree was brown and dead.

Marriage, while not easy, has turned out to be a breeze in comparison to growing an oak tree that commemorates our matrimonial union.  Imagine my surprise and joy when I walked in the yard the other day where the tree had been planted and saw what's shown in the photo at the top of this blog post.  In that photo, you can see where I broke off the dead tree.  But you can also see the fresh, healthy green growth coming from the roots below!

I rushed in to tell Tricia the good news.  She was ecstatic and suggested that I might put a tomato cage around it to protect it.  Good idea!  I did just that.  Then the other night, we were walking around the yard after dusk.  We rounded the corner and Tricia tripped over the tomato cage.  It was dark and she just didn't see it.  The next morning at daylight, I looked and saw that she had stepped on the new growth of the live oak, bending and injuring the little tree.

You can see in the photo, I did my best to make a splint from a stick and loosely taped it with the oak tree to keep it straight.  After two days, it's still looking good.  I'm keeping it watered and added a little fertilizer.  I am determined to make this tree survive!  Imagine how big this tree would be had we been able to plant that first tree from 32 years ago?  

When One Tree Comes Down...

Plant another in the Ground!  Yesterday we talked about taking down a dead tree in the side pasture. It is time to plant a tree or two to take its place.  The one that died was a water oak tree that has about a 70 year lifespan.  I like planting either fruit trees or live oaks, the former gives you food to eat and the latter provides longevity and plenty of shade.

It just so happens that I have a nice looking live oak tree that I planted from an acorn that has some special meaning to me.  I discussed that tree as well as others in THIS PREVIOUS POST.  This one has sentimental value to me and I call it our "Laura Lee" tree, after our oldest daughter and to me, represents victory and survival.  It was a beautiful Saturday and was a little cool, so we started a nice fire roaring with the remnants of the tree we had taken down. While the coals of the dead tree burn down, we'll put another tree to take its place in the ground.

Burn, baby, burn

The live oak tree we'll put in the ground is one I planted from an acorn seven (?) years ago, maybe.  I keep putting it in larger and larger pots as it grows and it has been in the flower bed in the back yard. Large tap roots grew out of the bottom of the pot and Russ and I had to dig them out and cut a few in order to free it from the ground.  I loaded the tree, some potting soil, some chicken litter and a shovel into the garden wagon and took it into the pasture.

Everything we need in the wagon

We picked out a spot to plant this live oak about 15 feet south of where the other tree had grown. Since it is by the garden, it will give nice shade from the morning sun, still leaving enough sunshine for the garden from about 11 am until it sets in the western sky.  We did some quick ciphering and calculated that by the time this tree grows to completely shade out the garden, we'll be about 125 years old and by then, we probably won't have the energy to garden at that age.  Maybe we'll downsize the garden at that age and just grow a small patio garden.  (Ha ha!)

We cut the plastic pot away from the "Laura Lee" live oak tree and then cut off a fork in the tree so it would grow straight and not have a weak spot.

We dug a nice hole a little bit deeper and wider than the circumference of the root ball.

One other sentimental thing about this tree is that it contains some Spanish moss that I borrowed off of a live oak on the LSU campus.  A couple of years ago, I draped it around the tree, but over the course of time, wind and rain blew it away.  I was pleased to see that at least a little bit of the Spanish moss attached itself to the little trunk of the tree and is flourishing.  Pretty cool, I think.

Spanish Moss in a live oak tree

Benjamin and Tricia pose by the newly planted live oak tree.  We'll keep it watered and take good care of it.

In addition to digging the hole for the tree, I'm diggin' Tricia's cowboy hat.

One other thing we had to do is position cattle panels around it to separate it from hungry goats and cows that would aim to eat every single green leaf off of the fledgling live oak.

As the dead, cut up oak tree sits in the foreground with its life over, a new beginning takes place as a live oak is ready to fill the void.

I think that I shall never see,

A poem as lovely as a tree...  -Joyce Kilmer