Twenty years ago I remember we were doing a topo of an area that was going to be a wealthy golf course and housing area. The engineers told us lowly surveyors to be sure and shoot the exact center of the trees, record their diameter, and also get two shots away from the trunk to show the canopy line. This way each tree could be perfectly shown on the drawing. Well, this creek ran through the area and had a bunch of trees we called river willows. Nearly every one of them came straight up out of the ground and then made a 90° turn so that the main part of the tree was more horizontal than vertical. We had fun that day and even more fun when the engineers saw the drawing of the trees and their canopies!
If that were in an upland setting in Central Texas and the tree were probably older than 175 years, the odds would be in favor of the Texas Indians having bent the tree over as a marker indicating the direction of a spring. Those would usually be live oaks, not willows, though.
My brother and I share some 'memories' of the Willow that use to grow in the lateral field of our childhood home. I don't know how fond either of us are of those memories however.
When we misbehaved (daily, if not hourly) Mama Cash would send us out with a paring knife and make us cut our own whoopin' switch with which she would wail the tar out of us. We were not foolish enough to cut a new growth greenie. If she didn't approve of the switch we brought she would cut her own...you really didn't want her to do that.
Years later after my mother passed I was packing her stuff up to sell the old homestead. I ran across that old worn out paring knife in a kitchen drawer. I still have it. An odd keepsake, for sure..but I still have it.
Hardly survey related. Just what came to mind when I read "Memories of Willows.":bored:
speaking of indians and live oaks- kent, you ever seen that live oak out at the end of imperial drive (the end of pavement, anyways). it's HUGE- i think we casually measured it at 88" or thereabouts (wasn't part of our job, just were curious as to how big it was). clearly a tree that was used as a waymarker or meeting place long before any of us gringos got here.
> speaking of indians and live oaks- kent, you ever seen that live oak out at the end of imperial drive (the end of pavement, anyways).
Imperial Drive sounds like a Gene Naumann subdivision that used to advertise lots for sale on local TV. I've never done any work in Imperial Acres (if I recall the subdivision name correctly), but I'll bet the canopy of the oak tree is huge in satellite imagery.
here it is. it begins branching, if memory serves, around 7-8 feet up, on the upslope side. each of those branches itself is one of the bigger live oaks you'll see on a routine basis. i've been meaning to get back out there with a camera and a tape, this is a good reminder. it being there was totally incidental to going down on the bottom to flush out some floodplain lots from- yeah- the bottom half of that subdivision that never was built out. that's a weird place in and of itself- maybe some zendik leftovers homesteading down there.
I overstated it- just found a note I'd made. 68". Might head out there here in a bit and grab some pics and canopy measurements, do a little climbing.
