My Heart Broke a Little Today

by Evangeline | Oct 23, 2018 | Before and After, cottonwood trees, Fall 2018, Flora and Fauna

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. ”  Kahlil Gibran

Today was a sad day for us. A towering cottonwood tree that is on our property crashed to the ground. My heart broke a little. Okay, a lot. I cried. When we were deciding where to put the greenhouse, one concern of ours was building too close to the cottonwood tree. We knew that it would need to be trimmed, but we had no idea that with all the rain we’ve had over the last few days caused the tree branches to become too heavy. All the large branches came down.

I was supposed to go down there today to clear the area where we’ll be building the first structure, but with all the rain we’ve been having, I canceled. It was a good thing too, because Simmi would have been playing in that area and who knows what might have happened if it never rained today.

I’ll be heading down tomorrow to take as many cuttings of the tree as I can, and I’ll try to root them to plant next spring. It might be too late to try and root them now, but it’s worth a shot. I know that in the spring the tree will send out new suckers and new growth from where it broke, and if my cuttings don’t root this year, I’ll use next year’s growth to start new trees.

It was such a beautiful tree. It’s commanding presence will be deeply missed.

It was such a beautiful tree.

For perspective, this is Saint standing next to part of the tree. He’s over 6 feet tall.

Cutting and clearing the tree is going to be a huge undertaking!