Grand Dame of Reno County

There's a Reno County landmark that's rooted in history - literally.

 

Those of us in 21st Century Kansas may not know much about it. There's no plaque to read, detailing the history she's quietly observed as life passes her by. Even Google doesn't share many of her secrets. And it certainly doesn't reveal her exact age. A grand dame never tells, you know. 

 

We were just glad to see her alive and still standing on a recent excursion down a rutted dirt road. On one of our many trips back from Miller Seed Farm last week, Randy requested a stop at the big cottonwood. We hadn't driven up the dirt road to see how it had fared after the howling winds had toppled our cottonwood and another storm had given a haircut to a hackberry tree in our driveway.

 

The tree - thought to be the largest Plains cottonwood in Kansas - is on a road just east of a cottonwood tunnel on 4th Avenue near Huntsville, our usual route to Hutchinson (and Miller Seed Farm). After the summer windstorms, more tree limbs had littered 4th Avenue, and county road crews had pushed debris from the tunnel of trees into a neighboring field, so we speculated that the mammoth cottonwood might have gotten an unwanted trim, too.

 

But the gentle giant didn't seem much worse for the wear, though there were a few branches broken off its huge "wingspan."

 

It's so big you can't get the whole thing in a single snapshot. Randy tried to demonstrate the massive trunk with his outstretched hands.

"It's a darn big tree," Jim Smith, former director at Dillon Nature Center in Hutchinson, said in an article several years ago in The Hutchinson News. I'm glad he did the measuring because we didn't come prepared, even to measure the trunk and certainly not to scale its height. It measures more than 28 feet around, 96 feet tall and has a spread of about 110 feet.  

 

 

Early Kansas settlers found the native cottonwood trees as they arrived from the eastern U.S. The wide Kansas prairie was often foreign and intimidating to settlers moving west from the Ohio Valley, the Appalachian Mountains or New England. The landscapes they had left back home were covered with trees that provided wood for building homes, fuel for cooking, fuel to warm the hearth during a harsh winter and shade to protect them from a hot summer sun. Following the Oregon and Santa Fe trails west, trees were in very short supply.

When a cottonwood tree was spotted, thoughts of shade, water, wood and back home filled the minds of weary travelers. The cottonwood gave those traveling through the state a respite from the summer sun and the courage to continue west.

When the Kansas Legislature chose the cottonwood (Populus deltoides) as the state tree in 1937, the proclamation read:

"Whereas, if the full truth were known, it might honestly be said that the successful growth of the cottonwood grove on the homestead was often the determining factor in the decision of the homesteader to 'stick it out until he could prove up on his claim'; and Whereas, The cottonwood tree can rightfully be called 'the pioneer tree of Kansas.' "

4th Street cottonwoods in winter

 

They are like the old family patriarch - tall, stately, but maybe a little rough around the edges after years of standing through the changing seasons. Many a country road is lined with these big old trees, whose shimmery green leaves seem to wave a friendly greeting in the Kansas breeze. 

 

We miss our old cottonwood, but we're glad to see the matriarch of Reno County still standing. If only she could tell the tales of what she's seen and survived! 

Pruning: Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

 

Randy thought he heard thunder during the night Sunday into early Monday morning. We both heard the wind as a front blew through and rattled windows and the attic door.

But when he went out to leave Monday morning, he discovered that the "thunder" he'd heard was likely the cottonwood by our mailbox ... crashing to the ground.

May she rest in peace.

We knew she was failing. But the green at the tippy-top of the tree gave us hope that she'd survive a few more years. Rain or shine, sleet or snow, she stood guard in our south driveway.

The cottonwood has witnessed a lot of comings and goings from the farmstead where we've lived since 1985. Just a few weeks after we moved into this home, that cottonwood witnessed us bringing home our first baby, Jill. It was a quiet sentinel 2 3/4 years later when we brought Brent home. It witnessed their wobbly attempts to ride bikes on dirt roads, their first bus rides to school and "saw" more than one 4-H calf halter broke. It waved goodbye as they left for college and greeted them when they come back home. It is our "witness" tree on the County Line.

Dorothy, who grew at this farmstead, says she doesn't remember a time that the tree wasn't standing tall at the south driveway. She estimates that the old cottonwood was at least 100 years old.

The road patrol driver asked about cutting her down. But while there was still green, we were reluctant to let her go. The wind made the decision for us.

 I will miss her.

One of my email devotionals, New Every Morning, featured excerpts from the book, Rhythms of Growth by Linda Douty, all last week. Each day, the devotional ended with this little verse:

Prayer for the Week

Thank you, God, for sun and showers
Thank you for each lovely flower
Thank you for each stately tree
Through all these, you speak to me.
—A Gardener’s Prayer

"Thank you for each stately tree."
Indeed.

I was behind reading them, and I didn't read last Saturday's devotional until yesterday morning:

Sometimes we feel that our lives (or our very selves) are being pruned without our consent. Life’s unexpected transitions and tragedies can cut us off at the knees without warning. Pain can prune us of innocence and illusion and teach us lessons we often don’t learn from pleasure.

Just as in the garden, pruning makes us stronger, not weaker. Both pruning and being pruned spur us to new growth.

—Linda Douty, Rhythms of Growth: 365 Meditations to Nurture the Soul (Upper Room Books, 2014)

Reading that devotional couldn't have been more appropriate after I'd been outside taking my final photos of one of my favorite trees. 

The question at the end of the devotional was this: When have you experienced pruning that ultimately spurred you toward growth?

It's something to think about, especially with Covid-19 and some other hard and sad things that happened this past week.

I suppose we're just as resilient as our mailbox, which survived the tree's demise. And I learned something new about the mailbox, too.

Randy said that Katherine - the former owner - told him that her husband, James, constructed the mailbox to move by rolling on a cement base. He got tired of the postal service wanting the mailbox in a different location, so he came up with a unique solution to make the job easier.

There's probably a metaphor for life there, don't you think? Roll with the unexpected changes? Don't be afraid to move?

Advice from a tree: 

Stand tall. Go out on a limb.      

Remember your roots. 

Drink plenty of water. 

Enjoy the view. 

Bear Grylls

Back in a 2013 blog post, I had this to say about our mighty old cottonwood:

A faithful sentinel welcomes me home.

The tree at the end of the driveway is like an old friend. 

The old cottonwood opens its arms in greeting ...

as the fluff of its white "cotton" drifts along the ditches in the spring ...

as it stands strong when the January wind rattles the ice-covered branches ...

as sunlight kisses the fall leaves with gold ...

 

and as birds make their nests among the bright green leaves

 and their song joins the music of the south wind ...


Thanks, old friend. I'm going to miss you.

We are already talking about planting a new tree.

Someone's sitting in the shade today 

because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

- Warren Buffet

***

Decorating our mud pies with cottonwood fluff - 1963 - From left, Lisa, me and Darci playing in the mud.

 More on my lifelong love of cottonwoods can be found here.

Cottonwoods: Wtiness Trees

One of Reno County's largest cottonwood trees. Can you see Randy?

I have a lifetime love of cottonwoods.  At my childhood home, an old cottonwood stood near the south driveway, the first thing visitors saw as they approached the farmstead and one of the last things silhouetted by a sunset sky at night. 

Cottonwood at my childhood home, Pratt County

Every spring, the cotton from the tree covered the ground.
My sisters and I used both the cotton and the green unopened pods to decorate mud pies.
In this photo dated April 1963, I was 5, Lisa was 4 and Darci was 18 months. I have fond memories of adding just the right amount of water to dirt and then pouring it into pie tins and buckets. The fluffy white cotton and the green pods were the decorative touch. It was all about presentation, even back before knowing anything about garnishing via the Food Network chefs.

But, sadly, that old cottonwood succumbed to old age, and it no longer stands sentinel at my parents' home.

On Sunday, July 8, CBS Sunday Morning featured a story on Witness Trees. These trees "witnessed" the battle at Gettysburg. Across 6,000 acres of Gettysburg National Military Park, rangers have documented at least a dozen "witness trees" that were alive during the battle - living links that help tell the story of the battle, according to park rangers.

Cottonwoods live from 60 to 200 years. A few of them that still survive today likely co-existed with the bison herds that roamed the Great Plains long ago. (Great Plains Nature Center, 2006).

Cottonwoods help tell my story, too, and they have "witnessed" important passages in my life. 

It just seemed right that a cottonwood tree guarded the mailbox at the home where we've lived since 1985. (Click on the link to see our tree in every season.) Just a few weeks after we moved into this home, that cottonwood witnessed us bringing home our first baby, Jill. It was a quiet sentinel two and three-quarters years later when we brought Brent home. It witnessed their wobbly attempts to ride bikes on dirt roads, their first bus rides to school and "saw" more than one 4-H calf halter broke. It waved goodbye as they left for college and greets them when they come back home. It is our "witness" tree on the County Line.

 However, it, too, is struggling to survive these days, with some branches never greening up this spring.

The road patrol driver asked about cutting it down. While there's still green to be seen, we're not ready to let it go.

Mighty cottonwoods form a canopy down many a country road in rural Kansas. One of my favorite cottonwood "tunnels" is along 4th Avenue near Huntville.

 

Though tree trimming and age have made that tunnel effect less dramatic in recent years, it's still a favorite landmark on the drive to and from Hutchinson.

June 2018

One of Reno County's largest cottonwood trees is on a road just east of that old cottonwood tunnel.  On a recent return trip from Hutchinson, Randy detoured down the road to visit. 

It's so big you can't get the whole thing in a single snapshot. Randy tried to demonstrate the massive trunk with his outstretched hands.

"It's a darn big tree," Jim Smith, former director at Dillon Nature Center in Hutchinson, said in an article in The Hutchinson News. I'm glad he did the measuring because we didn't come prepared, even to measure the trunk and certainly not to scale its height. It measures more than 28 feet around, 96 feet tall and has a spread of about 110 feet.

Early Kansas settlers found the native trees as they arrived from the eastern U.S. The wide Kansas prairie was often foreign and intimidating to settlers moving west from the Ohio Valley, the Appalachian Mountains or New England. The landscapes they had left back home were covered with trees that provided wood for building homes, fuel for cooking, fuel to warm the hearth during a harsh winter and shade to protect them from a hot summer sun. Following the Oregon and Santa Fe trails west, trees were in very short supply.

4th Street cottonwoods, September 2015

When a cottonwood tree was spotted, thoughts of shade, water, wood and back home filled the minds of weary travelers. The cottonwood gave those traveling through the state a respite from the summer sun and the courage to continue west.

When the Kansas Legislature chose the cottonwood (Populus deltoides) as the state tree in 1937, the proclamation read:

"Whereas, if the full truth were known, it might honestly be said that the successful growth of the cottonwood grove on the homestead was often the determining factor in the decision of the homesteader to 'stick it out until he could prove up on his claim'; and Whereas, The cottonwood tree can rightfully be called 'the pioneer tree of Kansas.' "

4th Street cottonwoods in winter

They are like the old family patriarch - tall, stately, but maybe a little rough around the edges after years of standing through the changing seasons. Many a country road is lined with these big old trees, which seem to wave a friendly greeting in the Kansas breeze. On early morning or late evening trips to check cattle, the cottonwood's leaves rustle and birds serenade from their branches.

Their attire changes with the seasons - whether clothed in green for summer or in yellow finery for fall or stark and drab in winter's solemnity.

July 2013

For years, the road to the Big Pasture was lined with cottonwoods. It's just not the same after they were cut down last year.

The Palmer Pasture cottonwood in better times.

A cottonwood near our Palmer Pasture came crashing down two summers ago. I still miss it when we pull into the southwest gate of the pasture.

I always appreciate the fall colors on the cottonwood trees as we leave the Ninnescah Pasture to bring the cattle home each November.

And a grove of old cottonwoods frame our secret garden of iris each May along the Zenith Road and the glimmer of the shiny leaves at golden hour make it even more picturesque.

Long may these witness trees live!

Down the Road to the Big Pasture

Perhaps you have noticed that even

in the very lightest breeze,

you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree.

--Black Elk

(I can't find the original of this photo, so I have to settle for this one that I've edited. It ends up looking more like a painting.)

I've always loved the tunnel of cottonwood trees that leads to the Big Pasture. For more than 100 years, Randy's ancestors brought cattle through the tree-lined road to the pasture on the Rattlesnake Creek. The ground was purchased in 1900 for about $4 per acre by August Brinkman, a great-great-great uncle of Randy's. Originally in a tract of 1,040 acres, 560 acres remain in the Fritzemeier family.
A few years ago, this location was designated as a Farm Bureau Century Farm. Randy's Grandpa, Clarence, and two of his brothers owned the pasture together. Now Randy and his cousin, Don, are the owners.

July 2013

The road has never been the best maintained. But it was still one of my favorites because of the play of light and shadows from the mighty cottonwoods. I imagined Randy's predecessors appreciating the road less traveled as they brought cattle to pasture and then checked them throughout the summer months.

Traditionally, we don't move cattle to the Big Pasture before May 1. Randy says that's because it his grandpa and his great-uncles wanted to keep it fair for everyone. After weekend rains, we couldn't move the cattle on May Day. Instead, we were a day later in taking the mamas and babies to the summer pasture.

I knew that there were changes in the scenery. Randy had gotten a preview when they worked on rebuilding and repairing pasture fence. But this was my first venture down the road to the Big Pasture since county crews had torn out the bulk of the cottonwood trees.

The first time I went this spring, I was too busy driving a loaded trailer through the deep, muddy ruts to truly see the changes. After that first attempt down the road, we went an alternative route, adding 14 miles to each trip to the pasture but assuring that we wouldn't be stuck.

We went back later in the week to check on the cattle and the fence. It made me sad.

Only a few of the magnificent old trees survived. Most ended up in the brush piles on either side of the road.

Cottonwoods always make me think of the song my very first voice teacher had me sing at my very first lesson,

"I hear the cottonwoods whispering above ...

"The old hootie owl hootie-hoots to the dove ..."

(It wasn't exactly an art song, but I digress.)

The mama cows probably couldn't care less about the scenery, but this mama will miss those old cottonwoods.

They are likely much more concerned with the condition of the grass and the water in the creek. With abundant rains in the last six weeks or so, those are in good shape. We are thankful for the full creek. In the midst of a drought in 2012, there was no water there at all.

 

August 2012

It's a much prettier scene to have ripples in the creek as the water flows by.

May 2017

 

It will require some fence repair once the water goes down a bit.

But you sure can't beat the scenery when the rains have greened up the pastures and filled the creek to its banks.

From our pasture looking to the neighbor's pasture to the east.

The pairs we hauled to the pasture should have plenty to eat and drink. They arrived at the old corrals, which have been used time and time again by Randy's family.

This is the first time at the pasture for these calves, born in January and February of this year.

But maybe it's like "old home week" for their mamas as they return during their productive years to the pasture. I guess they'll show them the ropes!

It's not the bull's first rodeo at the Big Pasture either.

And they're off to greener pastures!