It has been a hot summer. The autumn rains are "late." The tree is dropping small green branches, not just brown ones.
Last fall I asked the arborist what I needed to do for the ongoing health of the tree. He said, "Nothing! This is a Western Hemlock in the Willamette Valley! This is its native habitat." Exactly.
It's part of a grove of older trees. Their roots are deep in the water table. Or were.
I want to tell the tree, I'm here. I will be doing whatever I can to help. On my watch, no one will hammer nails into your trunk to put up clotheslines. Even if I can't fulfill all its needs for water, getting any water to its roots will be a sort of message. Won't it?
It's also frustrating that I can't speak directly to my body. I can only walk farther distances and lift heavier objects. Heart and lungs and muscles, you will be needed.
The tree is on a slight rise, so water from a hose would run down and away. I spent the night dreaming through the issues. At dawn I went out and tried this:
I picked the best pair of big roots to dig between, and cleared away acorns (etc), and dug somewhat below the surrounding soil. In that hole I put a small flowerpot with just ONE downward-facing hole.
My greatest fear was that the water would go sideways, not down. I patted the nearby ground every minute or so ... but the ground immediately beneath the pot seemed to be thirsty.
I took these pictures at the end of the experiment, when I realized I'd want documentation, after I'd let ~3.5 gallons be sucked down through that tiny hole. That's still a tiny amount for a tree this size. A wave, "hello."
This next picture shows the size of the trunk (gallon containers for scale). If we decide to pull down that gazebo (currently under review) we'll be able to have parties under the tree.
I'm guessing that "hello" to a tree this size might involve doing this every day or so until the rains return. On weekdays I won't have time to do this in the morning. Restful break before bed? Next summer I could rig up a drip system?
I will never tire of this view:
The gold is from the sunrise.
Notes (almost always longer than the posting itself)
Thanks for reading!
I'm using "the tree" because I don't know its name. Perhaps in time it will tell me. There is one more tree, also currently nameless, handling the drought better. I've taken care of its issue, removing the drought-resistant thorns and underbrush around its trunk. Now the squirrels can once again run up and down, chittering. In my imagination it missed them and is quietly glad they have returned.
So far the dogs haven't chased the squirrels, or even seemed to mind them.
Both of the trees' trunks have nails pounded in, with bits of thin time-blackened rope hanging from the nails. I'm now familiar with the DIY stylings of the family we bought this house from; this doesn't seem like their work.
In the 60s a developer laid out these tract houses around the groves. Yards and streets are shaped so that each yard contains two or three trees. My street is part of a numbered grid but my "block" curves like a pretzel. Lots of this in Portland.
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Before we bought Canem Lucus ("Grove of Dogs" - I like the English) I drove Dad by to see it from the street. "I worry that tree is dead," I said, pointing to the red/brown sections at the ends of the branches.
Dad said, "I don't think that tree is dead." He gave me the name of his arborist.
In the previous May we'd experienced a serious heat dome in which air temperatures reached 116 F. (I'd only lived in the PNW for 10 years and it was the first I'd experienced. Likely not the last.) Driving through this neighborhood I could see signs of damage on many trees. Amateur theories: this tree was one of the damaged ones because (1) after an extra-wet spring, it had chosen to unfurl some of its tender new bits that week, so they were more easily crisped, and (2) it was in the front of the grove, so to some extent it took the hit and sheltered the others.
Isaac from Honl Tree Care said that it didn't make sense to send arborists out to the end of each fragile branch (the best way to trim) to clean up the dry sections. "We have about thirty of these that we're monitoring." I said I would check in to see whether they'd figured out anything that helped. The tree recovered somewhat over the winter; the burned bits gradually fell off and the rest kept growing.
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In the back of Rob's and my house in Needham stood an amazingly tall hemlock. It featured in one of my better poems (not a high bar). Our tree service would "feed" it by sticking a long thin (noun?) into the soil near its roots, to release nutrients. There's more to be said about this house and the years I spent in it with Rob. I find pretending to "own" "property" (two problematic words) both thrilling and emotionally draining. And here we go again.
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Yes, my version of ST:TNG's The Inner Light. Theirs is stronger. But this is mine.
Now I've got myself thinking of Ann Elk ("my theory, which is mine"). Misogynist belittling of female-presenting scholars, who have a hard enough time of it already? Representation of a non-binary person that was pretty good for its time? Funny because aspects are universal? Let's discuss!
For the record, I am also "the bearded lady" mentioned in Richard Thompson's "Wall of Death."
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