Projo Subterranean Homepage News

Bottom-up journalism from the pros: News, tech and culture by Sheila Lennon
· Headlines · 25 words · Photos · Tag cloud · RSS · MultiBlog
« James Brown's earthly possessions auctioned | Main | Open Source Food: Where taste beats beauty; 'Mountain Stage' »

After the lightning strike, we're mostly unscathed

1:48 AM Mon, Jul 21, 2008 | |   Email this entry
By Sheila Lennon  |    Email this author

deckview_560.jpg
Friday night: Close call. The view from the porch was a horizontal treetop with 9-foot-tall branches.


Sunday.jpg
Sunday: What's left where it landed is less than half as long as the Scotch pine branch that fell.


After Friday night's lightning strike toppled the left fork of our giant Scotch pine, Joe worked two mornings before the days heated up removing all the still-attached branches. He cut up the smaller half of the fallen trunk with an electric chain saw and hauled off the chunks to the driveway; tomorrow a heavy-duty gas chain saw will tackle the big end. Sap is oozing out now as the fallen limb bleeds. Too soft to be firewood, it's just debris.

Amazingly, the only casualty was a baby bird uncovered, dead, under the needles. The flattened irises and the half-squashed sedum will recover. As I sat on the porch, the falling tree threaded the needle between it and other trees around the perimeter; it fell largely on open lawn. In several spots, branches punched holes as deep as 18 inches as the weight of the trunk forced them into the earth.

I have never been afraid of my trees before. I don't want to be now, as a new storm approaches tonight. Lightning can fatally damage a tree's vascular system. If we take down the rest of the tree to below the fork, will the lower branches fill in, and new ones sprout? If not, do we want a totem? A talk with a tree guy lies ahead.


Where the lightning struck is my new desktop image:

treetop2_450.jpg

More pics from Friday night and Saturday morning at that top link.


Vaguely related: In A daughter's love is cordless and rechargeable over on the Garden Blog, my colleague Paula Constantine deftly mixes informative and wry in a tale about... lawn mowers.

| More

Comments

pat said:

Hi -Sheila,

I'm so sorry. Luckily, none of you was physically touched. The poor bird!

I can't even visualize the moment the lightening struck. I did not even know there was a storm and lightening in the neighborhood. What exact time did it happen?

I would doubt very much if the huge tree would grow back again. Let us know what your tree specialist has to say. I have always had my own theory that big, big trees should not be allowed to overgrow and age, very close to the house or properties. I believe in cutting down old, sick trees and replacing them with new ones. I know so many of my friends, over the years, who are against cutting down 'living things'. I happen to believe in birth, getting old and getting sick, death and birth again. It's the same life cycle for us as well as the trees.

Now you can pick a new tree to plant and watch it grow.

Please let me know if I can do anything.

Link | July 21, 2008 9:12 AM
Report Abuse

Sheila Lennon said:

Pat, thanks for commiserating.
Your attitude is lovely -- I tend to think the trees were here before me and will be here after me, but you are right, of course.

It is expensive to have trees cut down though, and when they are old and healthy they aren't squeaky wheels.

I knew I was moving into the little house in the forest and, while I've complained that I have no sunny spot to grow vegetables, it is usually cool and pleasant, especially as I love shade. (We actually had made a plan to have our tree guy come by in winter to take out some Norway maples on the eastern side of the yard that I should have weeded years ago, but it never happened.)

Btw, Trudy over on the Garden Blog asked if it was really lightning, since the tree isn't scorched. I've quickly learned a lot about lightning -- about how many trees show no damage but have fatally damaged roots, and about how the greatest damage to trees (like mine) comes from the acoustic (shock) wave. Maybe it was struck by thunder.

Link | July 21, 2008 10:50 PM
Report Abuse


Leave a comment





Type the characters you see in the picture above.