Eulogy For A Crabapple Tree

Sunrise behind the tree

In March 2016 I closed on my house. That was a big day for me. The day I took possession, I made a set of photographs the very first thing. In the back yard was a tree that was in full bloom at the time. A very beautiful tree, pink blossoms glowing in the sunshine. There were several other times I photographed the tree as well because crabapple blossoms are very pretty. It only took me about six months to realize just what a worthless fruit tree crabapple are.

I suppose if you were a big maker of jelly and eater of bread, that tree might have some use. Since I do not make jelly and have given up almost all grain products, I could not make any use of the fruit of that tree. Not only was the fruit useless to me, but after watching for four years I could not find very many critters that could make any use of it either. Generally, a tree with ripe fruit will draw lots of birds, squirrels, bugs, etc.  Not crabapple trees. The fruit ripens, hangs, falls, and rots with nary a critter paying any attention.

Within a couple weeks of getting into the house, the grass was needing mowing. I bought a lawnmower and got to work. On the first time around the back yard, when I got to the street side of the crabapple, I noticed for the first time that there was a massive hole that was obviously compromising the integrity of the tree. As soon as I looked at it, I said to myself “Self, I says, you are going to be needing to have that tree taken down in the next year or so.” Every time I looked at that big gash in the tree, I agreed with myself. But as so often happens, I did not listen to me.

Fast forward to the spring of 2019. The tree bloomed beautifully, and I snipped off some buds and blossoms to take some close-up pictures. I also grabbed some nice shots of a sunrise through the branches of the blooming tree. That year the crabapples really did well, and by mid-summer I had to trim lower branches to be able to walk under it to mow. The fruit was so thick that the tree was just drooping.

In early August I had to make a business trip to Spokane for a week. I flew in on Monday, and Wednesday afternoon I got a phone call from the city saying they had shut off my electricity because a branch had blown down and ripped the wires off my house. Great. I was able to contact a local electrician and have them come out, clear the branch, and reset the wires so I could have power again. They were able to do this by noon the next day so my power was out less than 24 hours. At least I was able to rest easy in Spokane.

My return trip home put my arrival time at about 10:30 PM on Friday night so there was not much I could do other than look at my debris strewn back yard and shake my head. The tree had three main branches, and the one that stuck out over the back yard had snapped and bent to the ground. I headed into the house to unpack and relax before going to bed.  Within an hour after arriving home, I started getting severe weather notices on my phone. High wind warnings. As I puttered about the house, I could hear a pretty good wind come up but didn’t think much of it. After that storm passed, I decided to go back outside and look at the tree again.

I have often felt quite lucky in my life, and this was another moment when I felt that way. The wind had come from the west, twisted the tree and toppled it into the street. Incredibly lucky because that big limb now laying in the street had been mainly over the house. A different wind direction could have caused some major damage to my house, or at least ripped the power lines down again. Instead, I was standing there in the middle of the night looking at my tree completely blocking the street. I decided to just not worry about it and went to bed. Nothing I could do about it at that time. Somewhere around 1:30 AM I woke to the sound of chainsaws being run outside my house. The street along my house is busy because it is the bypass when trains are blocking the crossings north of me. The city had come by and opened one lane of the street so traffic could move.

The next morning, I went out and took these pictures. Then I got busy with chopping up branches and taking them to the compost site. I was just about ready to call a tree removal company when a guy stopped and asked if he could have the wood. I said yes, and they chopped it up and hauled off all the big stuff.

A close-up of the wood. In the lower left you can see the outer layers which were still quite sound. From the darker strip into the lighter color was absolutely rotten and you can stick your finger right into it with no resistance.

I write this because it was a nice tree despite the fruit being useless, it gave me pleasure just in it being there. It gave much beauty in the spring when it bloomed. It gave deep comfortable shade on a hot summer day. There is still an ugly stump in my back yard that I will be removing this spring, and I am going to replace the tree with a fruit tree that is edible fruit. Probably a peach, maybe a pear. The circle of life goes around and around.

The day I got possession of my house.