I want to sing a song under the maple. Take a knee, and pray. Its canopy is wide and tall and it is a sanctuary. There is a tree on the farm that I like the most.
I measure its size. The maple that was felled in New Hampshire was much larger. The tree was 101 feet tall, 19 feet in diameter, and had a canopy that was 100 feet high. Our maple is about 90 feet tall with a 70 foot canopy, but still not a record-holder.
I'm able to stand under the tree in the rain. We don't know if the tree is old or new, but we think it is. The maple can live up to 300 years. A friend of mine who has tapped sugar maples for fifty years says he has never seen a bigger one.
Our children used to ride sleds in the winter and jump into leaf piles in the fall on the hill where the maple lives. The main trunk split into four before we arrived at our farm. Our son climbed into the hollow where the ferns are now growing. There were maple samaras on our noses. The maples roots protrude out of the ground like those seen in the movie "Alice in Wonderland."
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I have observed that while the old sugar maple is good for the chickens, it is bad for owls and hawks because of the multiple perches it provides. A group of animals circle a tree looking for their next meal. Animals do too. Squirrels gather nuts for their winter food.
There are birds in the tree. The tree erupts with a chorus of birds in the spring and the Carolina wren sings in the summer. I look up after the birds have left. The Baltimore oriole is one that I love because of the way their nest hangs.
I'm worried a branch will hit me on the head when I collect eggs. I am worried for the chickens as they are about to be in danger. I have seen them run away from the branches before they fall.
There is a dying maple.
It faded slowly at first, but last summer it snapped and fell to the ground, the gray bark covered with green moss. It doesn't have many leaves. There is a crack in the middle There are more plants in the tree's crevices. I have never seen three woodpecker holes so perfectly aligned.
I do some research on the tree's demise. I am confused as to why I call Brian Crooks, a forester with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. There are small honey-colored mushrooms at the tree's base which indicate that the maple has a fungus.
Maples, oaks, and elms are affected by the Armillaria Fungus. The black, stringy rhizomorphs grow through the soil into the tree's trunk and roots. I could see mycelial fans if I removed the bark. None of that is visible at the moment. The Armillaria fungus is larger than the blue whale. There is a patch of Armillaria in Oregon.
I am not sure how large ours is, but I am worried about it encroaching on a red oak that my husband loves.
I wonder if the maple dislikes our new western Pennsylvania weather, which includes the extreme heat, the drought, and the microbursts of rain and wind. The maple sits in the middle of the pond when the water runs down the hill so quickly. Changing weather conditions are making sugaring more difficult according to my friend and uncle. The days must be warm in February or March. The timing is different now. I want to know if I'm a scientist.
He told me that western Pennsylvania is becoming more favorable for the development of the Armillaria Fungus. There are periods of wet and dry that can cause stress on the tree and make it harder for the tree to grow. Climate change is making individual trees less resistant to pests and diseases.
Our old maple is dying due to the Armillaria fungus. The tree can't recover. The mushroom is well progressed within the tree once it colonizes the root system. I apologize to have to tell you bad news.
The Cherokee call them trees.
I feel like I'm losing someone in the family.
I give a funeral when I close the chicken house at night. I'm thankful that I've spent a third of a century looking at it. My family has stood by me in good times and bad and I thank the tree for that. I hum a favorite hymn, "Ein Feste Burg," and whisper a prayer for the dead trees.
The book "A Farm Life: Observations from Fields and Forests" will be published by Stackpole Books.
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