Cabbage Tree Down

 

 

With everything in the world turned upside down and inside out, I don’t know why losing this cabbage tree that was already dead, was such a big deal to me. Perhaps because John had a sculpture on each side of it, after he managed to lob off the upper portion of the tree after it’d died back.

That was a couple of years ago but it was a shock to lose that tree twice now. Whatever happened to the bark that killed the stately giant was a scourge unknown to us. But something similar happened at our historic home when another old cabbage tree seemed to rot before our very eyes. On that one John hooked up some sort of fishing tackle that he looped over the top of the tree after casting out, and he somehow managed to pull down to earth that arboreal monster as I trembled in another part of the garden. But this tree just got its head removed and upper torso and stayed that way since then. So it was a bit of a surprise to see it prone on the lawn rather than upright. As my photo shows it just broke off slightly above ground level, so somewhere in there are roots to a dead specimen. What I see though is an animal, perhaps a dinosaur or a huge crocodile in the last throes of its death knell. Sort of reminds me of my dinosaur toys on the chair in the garden. Not having a good day at all today.

I hate when we lose these beauties that are so striking. Literally striking the ground would have been a pretty dangerous area to be stuck in or struck in. Had I been around there when it dropped it’d probably be curtains for me. I don’t run away as fast as I used to. Luckily too no chickens were permanently silenced either but the good news is that John wants to make a bench out of the trunk. How he can look at what’s left and see a bench is remarkable. All I see is a sad reminder of past glory. But I know he’s so resourceful and his plans usually turn out brilliantly and the odds are pretty high that the finished bench will be really something special. He is the classic engineer and loves to take things apart and put them together differently, usually with less parts but more charm. Good on him. You go matey. But in the meantime Shaq and Ginger are going to put it to good use if you don’t mind.