RAGGLE TAGGLE
This old rooster. 
He is positively ancient. 
He is so scrawny that he is able to hide from the big young roosters, keeping out of trouble. Mainly though he just hangs out in the feed shed tucked in behind the bags.
In fact he has been around so long that even his name has drifted off into mists of time. 
Do you remember the walnut tree that was split in half by the falling branch of another tree.
Well this year it has walnuts again.
It needs another good prune to try and keep the top balanced but all in all it has had a good summer. That split goes right to the base. So I think it will always need support and yearly pruning.
I hope you have a great day. It is Friday here. Only a half day tomorrow. Then a break.
Celi
Look at this!
30 Comments on “RAGGLE TAGGLE”
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That rooster… he reminds me of old blokes, still whipcord-strong, with big knees, and knobbly hands and feet and sunspots everywhere, but still fiercely independent, opinionated and all to ready to speak out. He’s not very beautiful any more, but he’s hanging on, making his way and most of his feathers are still shiny, even if that tail’s not the proud plume it used to be.
He does look like am old man , but his scraggly wanna be comb-over just doesn’t work! He is a sweetie pie and ‘Raggle Taggle” fits!
Isn’t that tail so sweet. Just two feathers!
We should rename him”old two feathers” he looks too cute not to have a name!
This old guy has really been through the wars! So glad he has plenty of places to just hang out without drawing attention to himself. A shame he doesn’t have any other old geezers to hang out with and play bocce and drink wine at the corner bistro :*)
Interesting how the hens will flock but the roosters stay solitary.
I didn’t know you could sort of hold trees together like that. Wish I’d known! I’d still have that plum…
Well it is still alive though I am a sure an arborist would have something To say about my methods!
We had a giant mimosa that split in a storm when I was a young child. I was so upset. My father wrapped it back together and it was still healthy at last twenty years later after multiple other home owners. Best of luck to your walnut.
What did your dad wrap
It in? Takes time which is fine.
My memory is that it looked like a garden hose in a figure eight. Let me ask and see if he remembers 🙂
Apparently it was a garden hose 😂
They managed the balance of the crown and the weight of the branches until it had fully healed.
So good to see the walnut tree has survived!!! Perhaps in many, many years it will be strong enough to support itself and stay in one piece! xo
Yes. I am thinking of actually weaving a branch from either side together so after a few years it will hold itself together. This walnut is an experiment
About your split-down-the-middle Walnut tree… I have been concerned that, as the tree grows, those straps will cut into the cambium – layer where nutrients run between bark and wood – and eventually strangle it…
but recently I saw a repair done on another such tree. They drilled holes right-the-way-through both halves of the trunk and then used these massive-long bolts to keep it together, and the tree will actually grow around the bolts and be none-the-worse for wear: )
All that has been done – remember? there are huge bolts through there.
The strap is loosened and retied periodically.
My father loves planting trees and there were a ton of them on our farm growing up. We had at least two that I can remember that had similar splitting issues that had been stabilized with long bolts as a permanent solution like Deb is talking about. The only thing is you have to make sure the you know where they are because if in 15-20 years the when/if the tree grows completely around them and you have to cut it down for some reason, the metal bolts will wreak very dangerous havoc on a chain saw.
Good point! Yes! There are two long bolts through it. But when I re leased the tree it began to tear through the bolts. And the person who put the bolts in has chosen not to try again. Deeming it good enough and a waste of time. So, I do what I can myself. It might last as long as me!
With support, I wonder if the tree will repair itself over time, like grafting the branch of one tree on to another. I met an ancient man in France (some time ago) who had about 5 varieties of apple growing on the same tree.
My dad did that once too. And I know another man who bent branches over as they grew so as to get curved boards!
It’s quite miraculous!
Dear old Rooster. What an amazing job you did on that tree. Have a good weekend and try and have some “me” time! Ha ha! That’ll be the day!
Aw, what a bird. Thank goodness he can hide and keep away from the young lads.
awww the rooster is such an old man, but still upright! And your tree looks like it is hugging itself! Have a lovely day!
The walnut will likely live a long life. My father and Uncle did something similar (very long iron rods with threaded ends) on a huge old oak tree that had a split like your walnut in front of my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Bettendorf Iowa back in the early 1930’s. I hadn’t seen the tree for about 25 years and thought it would be long gone, but it was standing tall and strong and probably a good 200 years old or more. The rod was just visible when I saw the tree in 2008, it’s still fine as of the last time I checked Google satellite images. My Uncle had several tough old roosters at his hatchery as well as a few tough old hens, he figured that if they could make it to old age they deserved a nice retirement and lived in the barn, not the chicken yard so they didn’t have to deal with the young roosters.
It seems amazing that a tree can survive bolts being screwed into and the strap holding it together…but then I have screws in my sacrum and a piece of mesh replacing my pelvic floor and I function perfectly normally, so why not?? I love that your farm has a microcosm of young and very old, battered, healthy and slightly disabled all living good quality lives. It’s a beautiful thing.
Hopefully heading towards old age myself I have an appreciation of things which have achieved advanced years, and the care, ingenuity and resilience employed to keep them going.
The recovery of that walnut tree is amazing and comforting somehow.
Just for fun, there was a series of ‘son of’ and ‘son of son of ‘ Neanderthal Man going back to about 2012/2013, names for the peghorn Leghorn roosters. After a quick search I think the last one named was Bob. Laura
Both the elderly rooster and the walnut tree resonate today! I often find that I need a safe space, usually involving a good book, where I can comfortably hide out from the world’s terrible news and my work duties for a little while. And who among us doesn’t need ‘support and yearly pruning’? I definitely do!
Hey Celi .. such a handsome old bloke! Amazing that you managed to save that tree .. well done