Angel Oak

This Saturday, for a change, my building at work was under going some 'normal' maintenance requiring all power, water, gas and God knows what else to be turned off - meaning that it was going to be even tougher than usual to do any work - and so i woke up at about 11am safe in the knowledge that i had a whole afternoon of sunshine to relax in. Having agreed to take care of a workmate's animals whilst she is away next week (more on this at the appropriate time), i had agreed to go round to her house to reacquaint myself with aforesaid creatures - and, on the way, it was suggested we stop off at a local natural 'attraction' - the Angel Oak - so called because of it's previous owners - Martha & Justis Angel.

As you might imagine, it's a living Oak tree (name: Quercus virginiana - a species native to the low country)- but what a tree it is!! For starters, it's absolutely huge - with a height of 65 feet, and a longest limb of 89 feet (with a circumference of 11.25 feet, that's a diameter of about 1.05 metres). The total area of shade under the tree when in full bloom is 17,000 square feet. And if those statistics weren't enough, the tree trunk itself is 25 and a half feet around (8.1 feet through the middle) - giving estimates of an age of at least 1500 years old (long before William the Conqueror came to the shores of the UK). Standing in the presence of this giant is awe-inspiring given the size of it's twisted limbs (held up by wooden supports and support wires). If this tree could talk, one must wonder what it has seen and what it would say.