The Ghost Oak's Halo

I found a formula a bit back which could approximate the age of a tree by its circumfrence and type, so we wandered through the woods last Saturday with cups full of coffee and a surveyor's tape measure, gathering abroreal waist measurements.

My initial, and quite uneducated, estimate of the age of the woods as a whole is about 50 years, and at some point in the near future I'll put together a grid, get measures for samples in the grids, then see how close I am in my estimation and whether parts of the woods are significantly older than others.

Last weekend, though, we were just doing the big trees we'd already identified.

This oak unfortunately died just over a year ago, right before we closed on the property. Lightening strike and infection, and who knows what else, but it lived for about 120 years.

The oldest trees we found were two pine trees, one of which was also dead. Both clocked in at around 195 years old.

Huitl Wood - Geography

The western border of the Huitl Wood is locked in by the back yards of that section of our neighborhood, and all but two of those homes have either privacy or chain link fences, creating a fairly contiguous physical barrier along that edge of the property.

The north is wide open to the smaller sibling of our arboreal oasis, and the only barrier between the two lots is an imaginary, if legally effective, line on a map. This northern lot is about ten acres compared to the Huitl Wood's thirteen, and contains a pond covering most of an acre.

The southern edge of the woods presses to the curb of a wide residential street which itself dead ends against the ballpark/airport complex about a block east. This edge is mostly a hedgerow of privets densely woven with green briar and trumpet vines.

We live along the eastern edge of the woods which, similar to the western border, is largely hemmed by backyard fences. The exceptions are two street stubs, meant to provide access to the future housing expansion envisioned when the area was originally developed some 50 years ago, but which simply dead end at the property line, and an easement between two homes where a small stream leaves the property, runs under the street, and disappears to the east.

The woods contain a three part stream system consisting of two storm drain exhausts redirecting rain water from different parts of the west side neighborhood, and an overflow stream for the pond in the adjoining property to the north. All three branches eventually join together before exiting to the east.

There is a small meadow on the western edge defined by the course of the two storm fed branches of the stream, and where the pond stream joins the other two branches they form a small complex of peninsulas, beaches, and a sometimes-island. The property is otherwise flat and thickly populated with pines, oaks, and elms.

Huitl Wood - Prelude

We have been in our home for almost a quarter of a century at this point. It's at the back corner of neighborhood on the edge of town, a short walk from the cities official baseball fields and the small municipal airport. Tucked into our section of the neighborhood is 25 acres of dense woodlands which haven't been disturbed in at least 30 to 50 years.

The eastern and western edges of the woods are locked in by backyards, almost all protected by wooden privacy or chain link fences. The northern edge is defined by a church and its property, and the southern edge by a neighborhood street where a curved break in the curb indicates an long ago intent to put a street through the middle of the woods and build a host more homes.

For most of our time here, the woods have simply been a scenic stand of trees behind our back privacy fence which gave habitat to the birds we enjoyed feeding, and a selection of furred and scaled visitors who might find a way under or through the fence. It also meant one less neighbor to deal with.

At the end of last year the southern 13 acres of the woods, including the section directly behind our home, came up for sale, and after a bit of thinking and planning, we bought it. I have since removed the back section of the privacy fence, significantly multiplying the size of our back yard.

I'm hoping to write about our experiences and adventures with the property, and wanted to get a basic introduction to the situation in place before I start spinning tales about the Huitl Wood.