Trees and holes

When I die I want to come back as a Live Oak tree.

For the better part of the day today I was working with some tree guys. We were digging holes all around Live Oak trees and then filling the holes with nutrient rich mulch. This process is called vertical mulching and is done so that the tree's roots system will have pockets of nutrients to find in the sandy soil and will thus spread out. Additionally, with these island of goodness in the sandy soil worms and other creepy crawlers will burrow into the mulch and distribute it into the sand making the sand more habitable for other creepy crawlers and if the sand is better then the trees are better. Backbreaking work but the trees get so much out of it and are so much more healthier because of it.

All along the coast of Mississippi there are thousands upon thousands of these Live Oak trees. Nature did something extremely right in creating these trees. Even while house were blown off of their foundations and other man made structures buckled under the Katrina winds and water these Live Oak trees didn't budge. A relatively small number bit the dust but still. Some of these twisted and broken trees along Beach Blvd were turned into chainsaw sculpture by a local artist. His work is amazing. Some sculptures take the form of Eagles/Pelicans perched on a tree branches, totems and soaring wooden things with the details so exact that you are hard pressed to believe that they were created with a chainsaw. The work is even more amazing when you realize that the ex-tree's roots system is still anchoring the pieces of sculpture below ground. I'll see if I can get some pictures of the sculptures.

The oldest of these Live Oak trees is a tree called the Friendship Oak on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. The Campus was severely damaged but the 500+ year old Live Oak tree survived without barely a scratch. This is a remarkable feat considering some of the devastation that I saw today. I had lunch under this tree today with it huge branches touching the ground creating a diameter of a couple hundred feet. (No joke, this tree is huge.) I hope the pictures below does it justice.

So when I die send me back as a Live Oak tree. Make sure that I'm planted in a field where there is nothing around me so that I can have my branches grow up and then down to the ground like the Friendship Tree giving much need shade to anyone who sits underneath.

- Wil