The ‘Vacant Lot’
The work crew taking down trees on the property across from the John Crellin House were having a little break as Nyel and I approached on our walk yesterday. They are in the process of clearing off the ‘vacant lot’ for our neighbors Gail and Fred who are making plans to build something there. Maybe. I imagine the first step is to take out enough trees and undergrowth so that it’s possible to see exactly what the area looks like.
For a good many years, the property has been a fine example of what happens to an “empty lot” if nature is allowed to have its own way. In come the blackberries and salmonberries, up come the alder trees, and in nothing flat the area is all but impenetrable. None of those natural park-like areas here on the coast. The expression “nature abhors a vacuum” could have been born right here in our own backyards.
Across from Uncle John Heckes’s Barn
“How old do you think that tree is?” I asked the man who was standing near the butt-end of the tree they had just felled. My lame way of admiring the work going on. I knew full well they didn’t have time to stand around counting tree rings.
“Oh, at least a hundred years old,” he said.
Really? But I remember when that whole area was pasture and Uncle John Heckes’s barn stood at the south end of the property. I remember Judy and Peter’s horses wandering around there and in my mind’s eye, anyway, there wasn’t a tree in sight.
I said as much to the man with the chain saw and I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. He may well have been thinking, “Yeah! That’s what I said…” in the ‘full knowledge’ that my memory could go back a hundred years and more. You know – the Little-Old-Lady-Of-Oysterville syndrome.
On Territory Road
When I got home I made a half-hearted search for a corroborating photograph from the forties but, alas, if I ever had one I don’t have a clue where it might be. I think I’ll have to ask some of the Heckes/Kemmer “kids.” They’re all a bit younger than I and their memories are probably more reliable.
But, even so, it’s tough to remember exactly when that barnyard and pasture disappeared. In some ways, “a hundred years” sounds about right.
Maybe he sought to impress you and didn’t know to whom he was speaking. Or maybe that particular tree actually had been a twig when you recall the property. I shall be anxious to hear what happens to the property now!
The ‘lot’ is covered with alder trees now. They weren’t there in my childhood, of that I am certain, and I have a way to go before I reach that hundred mark…
For some unexplainable reason, I always shudder when I read about tree felling. Perhaps caused by memory of the Tolkien stories in which the trees had personalities. I often think of the trees on the property in Santa Rosa….arborists speculated that the oak and buckeye in the front garden were “in their hundreds…..”
Nan, you would probably feel differently if you lived on the Northwest Coast! Many trees are, of course, special (like Oysterville’s Monterey Cypress) but alders… not so much. They grow everywhere and fast, fast, fast. They are lovely to look at but they can be pesty.
Sydney, if they were alders, they wouldn’t have to be a hundred years old to be that large. As Stephanie speculated, they may have just been little babies when you were a teeny-tiny child. Alders grow fast, and generally have a 60 to 75 year lifespan. Now, if they had been oak trees and were that large…
Yep, I know all that. And, barnyards and pastures aren’t very often covered with young trees. Around here, we consider alders “weeds” — they come up in flower beds and even on lawns seemingly overnight. I seriously doubt that any of the trees on that particular property are older than fifty or sixty years. Certainly they are not a century old. Neither am I…