“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you look carefully at the photo you will see a very large tree on a very big lean. It is not the best of photos. The scale does not do this red cedar justice. Its trunk is wider than the body of a thickset man. A while ago I could only just get my outstretched arms to reach around its girth. About twenty feet up it forks into two trunks which then stretch skywards.
With all of the heavy rain and wind we’ve had here in the northern rivers over Easter this poor tree has given up and fallen.
Well, all but fallen.
Yesterday it became hung up on the slender branch of a neighbouring fig, and a tangling of tops with the jacaranda.
When it falls (and it will for its balance is precarious and those slender branches are bearing so much weight and strain), it will crash down on the power lines, cutting power to the house. Already, in gusts of wind, branches rub the lines and the power flickers ominously.
During the night the thin fig branch has broken. The fallen tree has shifted dramatically. It’s hanging by so little now.
We’ve already notified the energy suppliers, and the crew they sent yesterday couldn’t cut the tree down. It was too big and too dangerous. So now we must wait for a specialist crew. There are trees down all over the shire just now, and they have plenty of work ahead of them. All we can do is stay away from the tree, and keep the dogs from playing there.
The tree may fall before the crew can get here.
There is nothing we can do.
It is what it will be.
It’s a beautiful reminder of the transient nature of life, and the way that things change in response to their surroundings.
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
wow! I would be looking for ways to prop it up somehow or tie it off to some thing! But I’m sure you folks have already thought of that route! As they say, It is what it is , I guess. You’ll be in my prayers that no one gets hurt and you don’t loose power. But then again loosing power isn’t such a bad thing overall, other than an inconvenience maybe. back to candle power! Hey it can be romantic! Just so long as no one gets hurt! Take Nicole, never a dull moment eh?
Meant to say….Take care Nicole!
Mother Nature will have her way no matter how inconvenient it is for us. I’m hoping for the best for you and the tree.
Shame about the cedar. However someone locally may want bits of it to turn and make bowls or the like. Another life for a beautiful tree. So there may be a break in transmissions 🙂 xxx
A bloody great post, I became lost in the post and when that happens it is good