The Fallen Oak

Atlanta is a tree city, and despite the clearcutting homebuilders who try to get every inch out of a new subdivision, it’s even more a tree suburb.

Tree-cutting services are as prevalent as pecan pie and you can’t go a week without receiving a notice of their services or an unsolicited knock on the door to announce they’re “doing work in your area and willing to give you a deal.”

Alex and I are more tree lovers than tree cutters.

Back in LA, there was a giant tree near the rear corner of our property. The tree not only provided shade, but blocked the view of a telephone pole, large junction box and the house behind it. The tree had probably been there before the houses were built in the 1960’s, surviving la nina winds and earthquakes. But it couldn’t survive our new neighbors.

Immediately after moving in, these people cut down this beautiful old tree and created a huge hole in our landscape and our hearts. They had the right. Even though much of the tree blessed our property, It was officially on theirs, not ours.

From then on, we referred to them as the environmental terrorists next door.

When we moved to Atlanta we had a backyard without a neighbor in site. There was an empty lot next to us that went down an incline so steep that no builder wanted it. So we had a gorgeous 180-degree view of old growth hardwood trees.

Lo and behold the price of the neighboring lot went down severely at about the same time that we had zero extra cash to protect our peaceful view, and that was that.

After the dust settled and all the trees next door were cleared for the new house, at least we still had our favorite ancient oak that sat just inside our property line this time.

The oak tree was 12-feet around at the base and probably 100 feet high with a canopy that could of had its own zip code. When we first moved in we thought about using one of its large branches for a swing, but the closest branch to the ground was too high for a regular ladder to reach.

We thoroughly enjoyed our oak tree and its seasons. The sound of its leaves rustling in the summer wind, the show of its colors in the fall, and the different wildlife it attracted year-round: a deer giving birth to a fawn under its shade, a woodpecker using it to find lunch, and squirrels that liked to use its large trunk for a kind of racetrack game of chase going round and round and round.

One day I walked outside and heard the loudest clammer of birds I’d ever heard. I looked up and it was like the canopy was alive. Hundreds of birds had decided to take some kind of break up there. I took out my phone for a video and as I pointed it toward the tree they all took off at once.

When you move to Atlanta you don’t think about hurricanes. You think tornadoes, thunderstorms, the occasional ice storm, but not hurricanes.

Well, we had one come up from Florida a few years ago and it didn’t stop until well past Georgia. I couldn’t sleep that night with all the wind outside. Then I heard a crack, thud and rumble. I looked over at Alex and she was surprisingly still deep asleep. I got up to go to the bathroom and as I looked through the top of the bathroom window I noticed a void in the sky where there once was none.

I ran downstairs and looked out the back window. The oak had fallen.

We didn’t have the heart to just have someone come out and chop it up and take it away. We were hoping someone would want it for furniture, maybe give us a tabletop from the trunk. We had a few interested parties but they wanted us to pay them- quite a bit- to do it.

So the tree and its giant root ball sit in the corner of our back yard. At least the wildlife is still enjoying it. There are even a few trees rooting now from the root ball itself.