We lost an old friend on Tuesday (November 10). It was a 60-foot Red Spruce that had partly framed our view from the house of the North Field, Great Cove, and Eggemoggin Reach. An ancient injury to the Spruce’s trunk was opened up (probably by piliated woodpeckers) and it started to rot internally. We had to have the tree removed; it was beyond repair and large enough to damage the house if it came down in that direction.
Above, we see our tree cutter, Tobey Woodward, beginning to notch the tree base after cabling the trunk to his big tractor about 100 feet away. The fatal cut from the opposite side of the trunk felled the tree obediently, but gracefully, where the cable pulled it:
By the way, Red Spruces are a principal source of building lumber, especially for heavy construction, yet their wood also is valuable for the sounding boards of musical instruments. Their resin was the principal source of the spruce gum chewed and used for healing by Native Americans and American pioneers.
(Brooklin, Maine)