Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
The Fallen Hero
by admin - 20:23 on 14 May 2012
The Big Clear-Up began this morning after a poor night's sleep. Gales and lashing rain can do that.
First job was to saw branches off the fallen Nutella Tree – a sad task but one that had to be done, and one that made me realise just how big the tree had become in the four years since we were introduced by Matchgirl.
Some of the root was still attached, and after a serious branchectomy the trunk was light enough to raise and place back in the hole left by its fall. One leafy branch remains and a couple of green shoots where new branches were breaking through. It seems stable, but a few heavy stones around the base should make sure it stays upright.
The fallen Nutella Tree
Whether it will survive and put out new roots and branches remains to be seem. The odds are poor. Should it not, the trunk could be left there as the world's biggest bird table. Time will tell.
The amputated branches are currently heaped up, awaiting a bonfire, but tomorrow I'll rescue at least some of them to scatter in the wilderness at the bottom of the garden where they could become part of some lucky creature's habitat. Burning seems a waste.
Within minutes of its resurrection, the birds treated The Nutella Trunk as though it had never been different, flitting around its stumps and resting on the boulders. The big test comes tonight: will an adventurous pine marten explore the arboreal remnant in search of Nutella?
Fingers crossed.
One for the history books: the last snap of The Nutella Tree, taken a few hours before its fall. The trunk on the right survives for now; the woodpecker's perch is gone forever.
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