The Lone Oak: Stand and Sniff the Wind

 "...There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass."

(W. B. Yeats, The Two Trees) 

No time like the present, as they say, and so a day after noting my intent to pay a visit to the lone Oak, I descended into the deep channel of the wash and did just that. All the while I half expected to be startled by an angry shaking of rattles, a warning of Rattlesnakes' slumber disturbed. But there was nothing - the buzzing of a summer bee, the resonant thump, thump, thump of the nearby quarry conveyor, the omnipresent drone from the freeway, and an occasional rustling of leaves when the breeze quickened its breathing. That was all. 

Surrounded by boulders laid down decades ago, before the dam was built further upstream, this one oak somehow took root and has thrived. In its younger years, those boulders probably provided protection, helping to capture rainwater for its thirsting and growth. Now, with deep tap and extensive root system, the Oak is more than capable of withstanding summers' heat and drought. I noticed not a single acorn, no future generation, though they may have lain buried in the grass, covered by leaf litter, or hidden by the neighboring shrubs.

Truthfully, I had half expected evidence of a homeless camp beneath the shelter of shading branches, but there was none. Perhaps Coyote finds respite from the sun here as, I am sure, generations of rabbits, squirrels and birds have done. 

Time has revealed other trees here, in the desolation of the spreading grounds - stunted sycamores, that oddly out of place pine, some eucalyptus, but this is the only oak that I have been able to confirm.

Work was slow this week, so I had an early start to the weekend, for everyone else the weekend is about to begin - get out into it and see what you can discover.