The Los Osos Oaks State Natural Reserve park protects 90 acres of coast live oak trees (Quercus agrifolia), some up to 800 years old. The park was established in 1972, and is located just south of Los Osos California off of Los Osos Valley road. A number of trails traverse the park for your hiking and viewing pleasure.
So it’s all awesome and wonderful living under the big, shady, green trees on the edge of the lake. Or, it is until they come down. In the lake. And you have to get them out.
It’s a perfectly clear afternoon (albeit there had been heavy rain on the previous day), blue sky, no wind, quiet and peaceful. Then 2 large pine tree trunks, without any warning, begin falling toward the lake. The tree is what is called a combinant tree. It has two trunks coming out of the same root body.
At first there was hardly any noise. Then gunshot loud cracking sounds as the falling pines land on and take with them a beautiful 10″ Maple.
Now I don’t mind too much losing the 2 pine tree trunks, other than the expense involved to get them out of the lake. But the loss of that gorgeous hardwood Maple tree just breaks my heart. The violence and volume of the cracking noises it made as those 2 pine tree trunks took it down is something you can’t un-hear. The poor thing was fighting hard for it’s life all the way down, as it was nevertheless relentlessly broken.
That’s enough drama for a while, Mother Nature.