The Hackberry Tree

I took this photo Tuesday of the hackberry tree and thought I should tell its story. This entire area was covered in cedar when we bought the place, but located in a draw between two ridges so it had potential. This area was in front of the cabin we were working on and after cleaning up in the immediate area of the cabin was the first place we wanted to clear cedar. A friend, F.M. Daniels, from Fort Worth came down and we had two chain saws working for two days cutting cedar. Most were the bushy type, 10-15' tall (some taller) and big around with numerous limbs, that had grown in the past 30-35 years. In the photo you will now see a beautiful stand of live oaks. These were completely covered by the cedars and could not be seen at all at the time. We had two big fires burning the cedar tops as we cut and a for few days following. After the cedar was cut there was an old dead oak tree about 25-30' tall and a scraggily hackberry beside it about 12' tall. You can see the stump of the oak that I now use as a base for feeding deer. Although the hackberry was scrawny having grown among the cedar I wanted to keep it as it was the ONLY hackberry tree on the ranch. The next week I engineered how I was going to cut the big oak down, but despite my best efforts it came down and broke the hackberry tree in half. Oh well, I tried. I decided to pick a good spot on the trunk of the hackberry about 5' from the ground and made a diagonal cut across and hope for the best. Well you can see the excellent results. Without the cedars the tree grew in a perfect balance and now looks fantastic. Although many hackberry trees are considered a nuisance tree this one looks very good, has good fall color, and provides food for the birds. And as mentioned it's the ONLY hackberry tree on the ranch.

Note how good the stand of Texas Live Oak trees look. They have doubled in size since all the cedar were cleared away from them. That's Gary Mountain in the background. BTW-the area cleared is larger than in the photo and the photo taken with the zoom lens also makes it look smaller than normal. I only put corn in that feeder when we have guests in the cabin, but this is now a favorite 'hang out' for deer.