HOW OLD IS THAT?!
Hi everyone! I'm back with another adventure! This time, I overheard Mom and Dad talking about some trees that are outside of our house. So, being a good lamb, I listened real good to what they were talking about. Now, I'm gonna tell you what I learned!
They were curious about these two Western Red Cedar trees we have because of our adventure trip to the Gold Mine Trail we visited a couple of weeks ago. If you missed my adventure, you can read about it here: https://peakd.com/actifit/@actifit-lamb/my-gold-mine-adventure
On one of our hikes up at the end of our road, I watched them both on their phones trying to figure out how to tell how old a tree was without cutting it down and counting it's actual rings. Sure enough, they found the solution. It goes like this: first, you need to measure 54.5 inches up from the ground on the trunk of the tree. Then, you measure around the tree at this point. I think Mom called this the circumference. Then you divide that by Pi. I always though pies were eaten, so I don't know how you do this; but anyway...... Once you get the total which she called the 'diameter'....(I'm not sure what that is either) then she said you divide that in half. Once you get that total, you divide that by .05. Sounds confusing to me!
This is the first of two trees they've determined an approximate age for. This one is just outside the front of the house. It goes up and up and up! I heard Mom say that she did all that math 3 times because she couldn't believe what the answer was!
Dad was standing beside this so you could see how much bigger it is than he is! Mom said this tree is approximately 503 years old! I'm not sure, but that sounds like a really big number to me, which means it's ancient!
In the back yard, just outside the house is a second tree.
Once again, Dad is standing by to show how big it is, but just look up and up and up! It's huge!! They said this one is approximately 493 years old!
I kept listening, and they were saying that 28 years or so, after 1492 (whenever that was) when Christopher Columbus (whoever he was) discovered America, these two trees were just seedlings! Well, I think they mean baby trees! My lamby concept of time doesn't even understand all these numbers and things, but they were quite amazed!
They also said that this was just an estimate. The only way to really tell how old they are would be to either cut them down and count the rings, which I don't think would work too well as they are too big to lay down, or to do something called a core sample. They don't want to drill into them, so they are happy with the estimate.
So now you know, sort of, how old these two trees that go up and up and up, are.
I've got to go now......my little hooves are very tired from all of this typing!
Until then......Bye! 💜🐑