Fallen trees resprout, telephone poles less so....

What a night! After 15 days of dry summer, we have had two nights of over 40 millimeters of rain, over an inch and a half of fresh water falling from the sky. But last night was especially windy, and this morning as I was preparing to leave for another adventure, I discovered one of our favorite trees fallen over, blocking a main path around our farm.

At first I wasn't sure what happened, but I continued to analyze the scene. Indeed it appears to have just snapped under pressure, right above the lowest branch. I will definitely copice this tree and watch its resprouts.

This is a 'Guayacàn de Manizales' tree, known in Latin as Lafoensia acuminata. It is associated with reforestation, wood and walking sticks.

Here you can see that this particular tree, the most advanced we have of this variety, was fruiting and about to give seeds.

We planted a lot of these, but they were heavily attacked by leaf cutter ants. We have one other medium sized tree of this species, which has approximately a one inch diameter at chest height, but this was our star. @ecoinstante was really looking forward to those seeds.

So while a bit sad, I have every hope that this tree will resprout and give a number of new trunks.

As our community has been working on the road, I have been taking more notice of it. The rain is our worst enemy, but the parts that have good ditches and crowned centers are holding up well.

Both Saturday and Sunday small community crews worked on a section of road we call 'El Gredal', which you can see some progress on in the below photograph. This road is well over 200 years old and was used by the founders of our small town to cross the central cordillera from whence they came.

The goal, apart from crowning and ditch digging, it to leave some stable strips of stone the car tires can grab onto.

Once down on the main road, I notice the storm did a bit of damage here too, taking out a telephone pole and stretching down some power lines. I wonder how long the people here will be without power? I think again about if our town would be able to be self sustainble in a crisis. Could we make enough power here? Could your community? Can any of us even maintain what we have inherited from those who came before us?

I think of Charles the Great, Charlemange for the French, who, despite his greatness, could only marvel at the grumbling Roman highways and acueducts of his great great great tatara grandfather's time.

Its about an hour and a half to walk to today's adventure, which I hope to post about very soon. On the way, I grab this shot of our farm, and all our neighbors, from the next mountain over. In a future day, when I have access to MS Paint, I will take this picture and draw a box around our farm. I see it, but of course I live here.

There is so much work to do. I feel strongly that what we build, matters. Our sustainability, matters. Our actions, and our lives matter, though it has absolutely nothing to do with who is President.

Be essential!

Love and Light!

Awww, so sorry about your tree friend! That's so sad. :( I do hope you're right and they grow new branches, though. Life Finds A Way, and all. :)
Yeah, we are so, so dependent on the structure built by others, and on globalization. Any minor hiccup to the system throws major wrenches into people's lives, and global weirding (a much better term, imo, that I stole from a book - Hot, Flat, and Crowded I think, but it's been a while so I'm not sure if that's the right book, lol) is going to throw in a lot more hiccups. I mean, pandemic hiccups were bad enough. I hope it shook some people awake into figuring out alternatives where they can.
I lament that I am unable to set up systems like you can on a farm, but I am trying to build community as much as I can so there are support systems among people. The government certainly doesn't give a sh*t about taking care of people or sustainability!

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phoenixwren (72) 4 years ago