If trees could talk, there are a few trees at White Rock that have probably seen it all from their growth stand. It occurred to me not long ago that another severe ice storm like we just dodged, or straight-line winds could bring these old story tellers down to the ground and reduce their massive, scared trunks to firewood.
There is a story about the old Pecan tree that stands on the Cole farm in Highland Park that is decorated every year. KERA has run the story as fillers many times over the course of its creation. But people that live around the lake; regular visitors to the lake or even a one-time visitor visiting family here in Dallas looking for some place neat to sight see, also notice some of these old haunting trees with their rabbit-holed trunks. Their twisted, sometimes sawed off, even bent, and mangled branches have their own character that are just as old as the Cole pecan tree, if not older in some cases.
The project sprang up when I was looking for something of significance to shoot at White Rock Lake. First, one thinks of buildings. Some good, some bad, but they have been shot over and over and over .Eventually, the list came to be titled, "old trees" The odd thing is that during the summer, when leafed out, it's easy to miss some of the character of the tree itself. But, in late fall and early winter when the leaves start to fall and branches are bare, one can see the real beauty of the tree from an age stand-point. The character just blossoms.
Here are just a few of what I found today.
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| The trunk is split from the base up the trunk for nearly 15-feet.I would guess that a lightening strike hit the tree more than just once. |
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| The trunk is straight but it has been mutilated by weather, disease or lightening. |
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| Another tree that has overcome lightening strikes, wind damage, and who knows what else. |
These old trees have a ghostly character that only age can bestow on this old story-teller. The wood would be interesting to inspect. Old wood like this is filled with so much character, no wonder people search the planet for old trees like these for a variety of reasons. Many, just walk by the old tree and never notice its character at all.
