The Fall of the Giants     

By Nikki Pelezo / Dirt Roads

We bought our home just for the old oak tree.  She was mighty, broad, tall, stately and she was old.  It was always cool under her limbs and she didn’t mind the old swing tied to her lower branch.  We took her for granted.  We assumed she would keep on giving our home shade and our yard that special look only big old trees can give.     

Our lovely East Texas is losing the giants.  The drought and a mean hot summer killed thousands of oaks in our part of Texas, some say the drought killed a million and a half trees state wide.  We poured the water on her, but she needed tons not sprinklers full.     

I look out my kitchen window and see those nasty pines on the tree farm across the road, green and lush, but they don’t hold a candle to the giants.  You can’t tie on old swing on a pine tree nor can you sit under one sipping ice tea in the cool of the shade.     

We are going to miss our giant oak.  We can plant another, but we won’t be around to see the sapling in all its glory.       

An arborist was called and pronounced her dead.  We laid her down with dignity and she gave us 5 cords of wood.  Our home is no longer in perpetual shade, that mean old Texas sun found us.