My big white oak

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onion

onion

Burning Hunk
Nov 3, 2009
184
Ohio
Finally got around to taking some pictures of this beast. It sits on the property line and was used as a boundary marker back at least 100 years back when this land was all completely cleared. I actually have an aerial photo from 1938 where you can see the tree in the corner of a plowed field.

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Scale is so difficult in these kinds of pictures but I measured the circumference as 12.5 feet making dbh approximately 3.9 feet.

Some of the HUGE limbs are dead as you can see in the pictures. One of these days I will take a ladder out and trim them off. They would be a very good haul of wood on their own. There are several of this tree's descendants in an area around it. The largest of those is 7 feet in circumference. I am in awe every time I get around it. A forester from the extension service came out a few months after I bought the house and said he would think the tree is at least 150 years old and could easily live twice that. This tree likely began life around the same time my ancestors arrived in Columbus Ohio from Germany and Ireland. It was probably a sapling when Morgan's Raiders came through SW Ohio in the Civil War.
 
Very majestic, If trees could talk, this one should have some stories to tell. May it stand for many a years to come!
 
A testament to oak. On those dead limbs, you get lots of them in oaks, even when they are that size. Just recently we returned home from a trip out east to find our driveway filled with limbs from the oaks. They had a big wind day while we were gone. Made a bit more work for me but the oaks are nice to have.

Interesting that yesterday I was showing someone our land and I pointed out a particular white oak which is probably the biggest tree on our place outside a big cottonwood. In all the years we've had this place and even before then, I never recall seeing even on acorn on this tree. Seems odd but that is the way it is.
 
There's a good number of acorns down around this one although it is hard to say if it dropped them or the other smaller ones did.

Either way, my stand is going up not far away :)
 
I liked this thread until the acorns mentioned. i have cleaned the lawn and driveway 5 times already and it needs one more. This is the most acorns I have had in 7 years in the house. 5 red oaks in the front yard.
 
Pretty good crop from the white oaks this year here, too.
Squirrels are busy.
Dog has decided they are tasty. Constantly wants to go out for a 'treat'.
 
I have an oak on that scale in my front yard. My driveway looks like I am making acorn butter after driving across them... yummy?
 
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