Old Shaggy

I am not blogging as much lately because I've been busy with school kids at work (and home) but also because they aren't publishing my blog in the paper anymore due to "format changes". It bummed me out, but I do realize there are some of you "out there" that actually read my blog online still. So I'll keep at it as long as I can.

Today I was searching for something to write about and Cathy, the Office Manager/Nature Lover yelled, "Did you see what happened to Old Shaggy?" I knew it was bad news. Yesterday afternoon we had very high winds and Old Shaggy was, well, old.

Old Shaggy wasn't an animal or a Board Member or a character from Scooby Doo. Old Shaggy was a Shagbark Hickory snag (dead standing tree on left) that had resided in our meadow for a long time. He was part of the beautiful view outside my window since I started here 6 1/2 years ago. I have watched him house woodpeckers and squirrels and be the resting place for raptors and smaller birds. Many schoolchildren have flocked to Old Shaggy because he was beautiful and unusual and even kind of spooky looking. He has been the subject of a lot of photographs.

He has been losing his horizontal limbs one by one in the past several years. Yesterday he fell (right picture).

So what, you might be saying? It's just a tree. But it was more than a tree to people that work and visit here. It was a symbol of how even something no longer alive can still work to touch lives. How we shouldn't discount something just because it is old and seemingly no longer useful. How the landscape around us is important and should not be taken for granted or destroyed. I try and encourage people to leave snags standing when they can.

We are gonna miss Old Shaggy. I hope to convince people to let me keep him right where he fell so we can use him to teach kids about decomposition and how the life cycle works. Thanks Old Shaggy.