Pic of gone oak tonight

Well I thought it would go next year. Surprise!!
The old oak tree fell at 7;15pm. WE (son & I) was reading posts on Yt,heard a loud thump, Made everyone (Including the dog)Jump. This old tree hit the wood pile where the F350 sat. Lucky we moved the truck last night.My nephew had his dads Durango parked where the tree fell, but again he left about 1/2 hour earlier.My Son grabbed the stihl and daughters pulled the limbs,just enough for my daughter to get her Dodge pickup down the drive. That was what I considered MY LIFE"S TREE> . Well the other half thats still standing comes down tomorrow. Seems the snow on the leaves over burdened the split oak. Gonna wait till tomorrow for the daylight to come on , then we will know more what to cut. MISSED THE 706 Thank God. That was a magnificent old white Oak tree. Gone Now.
LOU

Hey Lou,
You need to clean your camera lense. Its got white spots all over it. .......

would you be able to use the trunk for lumber? Maybe it doesnt have to be gone maybe it can be a bookshelf or endtable?

Yep. Not pigeon droppings. lol.Snow Snow & more snow. AInt we lucky?
LOU

All going for fire wood. Cant make any thing out of it except fire wood. In the morning my son will see if the half standing can be saved. For how long, don't know, Any way sure was a great oak.
LOU

95 YR OLD MAPLE fell on my house and rolled out 20ft of wall and 5 windows during hurricane IKE gusts ..my 93yrold Father had passed away 3 weeks earlier .... LIFE TREE , HUMMN...

Hi J. MAkes one wonder doesn't it? Strange your father was two years younger then the maple. Weather will play havoc with them. Seen tornados do in acres of pines up in siren & webster Wi. Not far from us. Had one here that took trees down along with power lines. NO electricity for 21 days. Not many old pines left standing, Would have made nice lumber. Any way no more big White oak on the property. Some Nice red oak though.
LOU

(quoted from post at 20:32:57 10/23/09) All going for fire wood. Cant make any thing out of it except fire wood. In the morning my son will see if the half standing can be saved. For how long, don't know, Any way sure was a great oak.
LOU

Click to expand...

Sure you can.. Take a nice 4 or 5 ft section and saw it down the middle, make you some posts out of another chunk, set them in the ground, cut hotches in the two halves and make a couple nice benches.

I have several large oaks, both red and white, in the woods. A wind/tornado took large limbs out of a few. Hated to see them damaged. I don't know how old they are, but I plan to check the rings when I cut the stumps.

Larry in Michigan

Lou, I've done that, left the other half up. In the hedgerow across the road, where our property butts up to the neighbors, the trees provide a nice privacy wall. Really healthy maple, split at the crotch one year, got that piece cut up, then another 1/3 split off, but after that, there was nothing else that would come down, completely healthy tree. I cut vertically up/down, to the partial stump and cut that at an angle to help the water run off. This maple was a thin/tight bark type, good sap too, never been tapped but was cut in late winter, I did boil up some syrup from it. I'm not sure if the tree paint that can be used where you trim limbs would help, usually rot and decay and or ants are what weaken these and black cherry, though the latter will hold on right till the end. This maple just outgrew it's ability to hold it's own weight, I see 2 more of the same genetics, looks like one could cinch a cable or a few around the weak area to prevent the split from getting bigger. Luckily, all are in places where there is nothing nearby, realizing that in some situations, no other choice but to take it down. Been a few years and the exposed area is still hard, weathered but no signs of insects or decay, remainder of the tree top is full of leaves and maintains the continuous sight line of trees, kind of glad I did it that way, hard to say what will eventually happen though.

Billy from NY. Sun up and it looks like the tree is a goner. Another Y at the remaining top is starting to split just like the one that went over on the wood pile. I guess the tree was overburdened with leaves,so when this WET snow hit , the tree couldn"t withstand the added weight. This old oak held its leaves up until spring when the new ones appeared. Dave 2 suggested making benches out ot the standing trunk, Just might try to do that, Time is so short with making up the heating wood from my daughters 10 cord. Should have had the fire wood 2 weeks ago when the weather was nice. Didn"t happen ,so now it"s push push push. Gotta cut her wood and then Split both piles(20 cord) Murphys law I guess.
LOU

Same thing here, pile of logs at the end of the driveway, diligently gathered last spring, black cherry, oak and maple, not one bucked up, that's the problem when you're busy, I figured I'd have a chance, but we all know how that goes, and of course it's raining today LOL, well my out is to bring in 2 cord at time in the room where the stove is, it will dry down by the time it gets really cold and we're snowed in, so all is not lost.

I've always admired the trees, you do what you can, sometimes it does not work out, I try to let em live as long as possible, sounds like that one is a risk, seems everyone cleared that area in the nick of time, gets ugly when they fall on things.

You are blessed! To recap, it could have hit a F350, a Durango, a Dodge, and a 706 but didn't hit any of them. Praise God for that!

What do you mean, your life's tree?