It should probably have come down - been felled, that is - some time ago. It was a willow of unusual size and reach, with main branches of huge dimensions, as thick as those of a centuries-old oak. But it was a favourite tree, a special tree for two young sisters who, in its better days, used to climb up to a snug place where the branches, reaching out, made a sort of platform at the centre. First casualty was a couple of years ago, when one of the great branches suddenly gave way in a storm, fell across the river beside which it stood, and in so doing left the trunk with a gaping hole.
You could see that part of the inside was fragile, crumbly, even, in parts. Two huge branches remained along with minor offshoots. Neither branch likely to fall on human beings or farm animals, so placed was the tree. Then, in the recent big winds, one of the two remaining major branches gave way, and fell neatly, parallel to the fence, but not touching it or the birches behind it. It hit the ground with such force that it fragmented.
The last of the remaining giant branches now comes up for resolution. Wait for it to come down in the next winds? For it, too, can be no danger to life. It reaches out over, and partly rests on, the tops of some young ash of about 30 feet. Perilous to go at it with ladders, pulleys, winches or whatever; wait for the crash and then get at the stump and tidy it up. One neighbour says it could be nearly 200 years old. It was planted as part of a scheme along the river. Its companions are long gone.
The half-hollow trunk, left at about eight or ten feet, could be a haven for birds, insects and other creatures. As Frank McDonald reminded us the other day, the 1987 storm over southern England caused a lot of tree damage, but also got rid of many trees that were past their time, and thus, in their going, allowed younger survivors to flourish and left room for replanting. Trees down, but also trees up. Let it be noted that the first oaks for 1998 (repeat 1998) came up and in good leaf in early December, strong from that great crop of last autumn. Hydroponics used to be a word used for the method, the upstage word, but it comes, in this case, down to putting a few acorns, pointed end down on the top of waterfilled Ballygowan or other suitable bottles. Soon, down go the roots, and one day, to your surprise perhaps, there breaks through the skin of the acorn, a slim, pale green shoot, bearing folded leaves which soon open. Next you put the plant into a pot of compost, remove it from the kitchen window, set it out in the open and you are into the new planting season.