Keeping It Together

The live oak tree in the left hand side of the photo below is OLD.  If we were to give our trees names, I'd call this one Methuselah.  Methuselah in the Bible lived to the ripe, old age of 969.  No, I don't believe this one is that old, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it is around 200 years old.  I want it to be around for many more years.  Twenty-something years ago, we almost lost her.  A hurricane blew through with tornados following and the old tree split!

Not one to give up, my neighbor (who is now deceased) and I devised a plan.  In that barn you see in the background above, he had every sort of tool you could imagine.  One of those were some drill bits that were two feet long.  He was in his early -70's at the time, I suppose.  We climbed up high into the tree with a drill and began drilling holes in four of the large branches.

Once the holes were drilled, we inserted some threaded rod with a homemade washer made from some iron plate and a big nut on the back.  To the other side we screwed an eye bolt.  Then we did the same exact thing on the other three and ran cables through to connect them.  We joined them using turnbuckles and tightened the turnbuckles until the tree was pulled back together.  If you look closely in the photo below, you can see our "shade tree arborist" handiwork.

Would you believe me if I told you it worked?  It did!  The tree over the years, pulled together by the turnbuckle and cabling, began to heal.  Notice the scar on the south side of the tree:

And here is the one on the north side.  Prior to fixing it, you could put your hand in the 'cut' and feel it pulse as the wind would blow.  But it is all healed up.

But earlier this week we had a problem brewing.  The weather forecast predicted very strong winds coming in. I had already checked on one of the old turnbuckles and the hook on one end was almost straightened out!  The winds and the weight of the tree had damaged the turnbuckle to the extent that I didn't trust it anymore.

So I found a different type of turnbuckle without hooks.  This one, hopefully, won't straighten out or break.  I extended a ladder and climbed way up into the crown of the tree with wrenches and the new turnbuckle in hand.  Tricia gets a little worried when I do things like this, but I wanted to save old Methuselah.  If I could accomplish that without falling, that would be a victory for sure.  I disassembled the old turnbuckle and replaced it with the new one.  I tightened everything up, too. 

The strong winds did blow.  I kept passing by the window as the winds howled to check on Methuselah, and you know what?  Everything held!  The turnbuckle and cable did its job.  Perhaps the old tree will make it another 200 years?  What stories this tree could tell if it could talk!