Monday, March 8, 2010

Timber! (UPDATE)

Last week I actually witnessed this tree fall.  It hit the ground so hard it made the snow bounce.  I was running with a friend and I just said. "Wow, you don't see that every day."




The weird thing is that I did not think of it till I cam across the tree today.  I was running aimlessly around Prospect Park.  It is kinda nice not to have an agenda when you go for a run.




That spot is behind the Zoo.






That tree might have been born before 19_ _, but I am no expert.










Lots of Updates


First my friend Dave sent me this tree map.  The tree in question is not on the map.  It would be on the upper right hand coiner of the tree map.  
I made a Google Map that locates the spot where the tree was.  Scan out a little to see that this tree in this park is in the middle of Brooklyn.  Every tree counts here.


.

Today on my run I encountered a team of lumberjacks on the south side of the lake.  Yea, 4 guys up in the trees and one in a truck.  I asked the guy in the truck what they were doing.  He said they were looking for asian long horned beetles.  Then I asked him if that is why they had to take down the tree by The Zoo.  He told me that they did not take down any trees in the whole park, they only remove chunks.  He said his crew was from the United States Department of Agriculture and I should ask the Parks Dept about that tree.

So I did.

I also email the Prospect Prospect Park to find out why they took the tree down.  The told me to "Contact Anne Wong, our head of Landscape Management at 718...  I did and she was very nice.  She told me the tree was very old and was starting to rot.  It needed to be removed before it fell.  That would be very bad because it could land on the road or worse in the Zoo.  

But more exciting is the fact that it will not recycled into wood chips, it will be made into furniture by Scott Jordan.  Then it will be actioned off as a fundraiser for the Park. Cool.  Way cool.

She also suggested that my kids count the rings.  That sounds like a plan.  Look for further updates.

16 comments:

  1. That is a BIG tree! Glad you weren't in it's "falling" range! Love your shots! Have a great week!

    Sylvia

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  2. Well really, that's almost a little bit scary! What if you'd been under there when it fell?
    But a great shot (in retrospect). Thanks for sharing.

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  3. I like the sign, what a great touch!

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  4. Poor tree - I wonder why it toppled?

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  5. LadyFi, she was cut. I will look into the details as to why.

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  6. Someone should put another RIP tombstone next to this one in memoriam of the tree felled to make the cardboard.

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  7. Somewhere we have a tree map of prospect park. All the big old trees are identified.
    Perhaps this is one of them.
    We will miss her. :-(

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  8. I am always sad to see a large old tree that is sound in its heartwood fall to the might of the chainsaw. Trees soak up CO2 and give us the clean oxygen we need to breathe.

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  9. I found my tree map.
    It's similar to this electronic version, but it has 52 different species in specific locations around the park.
    http://www.prospectpark.org/environment/trees

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  10. I have updated this blog post with lots more info on "Big Grandma"

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  11. Thanks for the update. That was good investigative work and really interesting.

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  12. I met the Asian Longhorn Beetle guys from USDA and sort of interviewed them; figured they were both from the Midwest or something but 1 guy was raised in Queens, quit the office grind to climb trees! Fortunately, no beetles found so far. (In one backyard in Wmsburg, he said, they found beetle damage but no beetles--'cause a guy's pit bull had eaten them all!)

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  13. There was a "notable tree survey" done in Prospect in 1972 by M.M. Graff, who also wrote a book about trees trails in Central Park. This was updated in 1990 by C. Glaeser, and the results were shown on the old Prospect Park map published by the sadly unheralded Greensward Foundation/Friends of Prospect Park that year. No trees were noted on your mapped section of the park. So it was probably some kind of oak or a tuliptree, which are our usual big ones. http://matthewwills.com/

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