Nice to see you back @boxcarblue! It's funny that my wife and I were talking about old trees this past weekend. We were admiring a large tree at a historical ranch house in Camarillo, California, when I remarked about a tree I had been studying at the Mission San Buena Ventura earlier that morning. I was thinking about all that the tree had been witness to during it's life span...nowhere near 1,000 years though. We did recently see a large slice of a redwood tree that was cut down in 1943. They have the slice on display in Fort Bragg, California, near the town hall. At the time it was felled, it was the largest redwood tree known to have grown in Mendocino County. The informational plaque on the tree noted that it took a 22 foot saw and 60 man hours to bring the tree down. I think some of the redwoods can live to be 2,000 years old.
60 hours is a lot of time to spend cutting down one tree. I can’t imagine what that must have looked and sounded like when it came down.
A thousand years is so hard to imagine. This tree, Shogun Sugi, is on the side of a mountain in the countryside. From where it stands, the view might not have actually changed that much in its lifetime. Still, it’s hard to imagine how it could remain standing all of this time.
I’m not sure how old the legend about it is. I wonder if that protected it during logging periods. Now it’s nationally protected, so barring any diseases and natural disasters, it should keep on growing and outliving us and our children and maybe our grandchildren as well.
The slice of the tree has a saw mounted across it. Presumably the blade that felled it. Here’s the thing. The slice is just a slice. That means they had to cut through the fallen tree a second time. That’s a lot of work.
Some people have a lot of free time🤣