{"id":1280,"date":"2019-10-22T20:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T01:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2019\/10\/22\/20191022-snaketreecollapse\/"},"modified":"2022-02-19T17:36:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T23:36:58","slug":"20191022-snaketreecollapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2019\/10\/22\/20191022-snaketreecollapse\/","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Snake Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alert Gazette readers may recall this post<\/a>, in which I chronicle one of the most dramatic nature-related encounters we’ve had the privilege to witness since moving to the Texas Hill Country. I think it’s worth your time to check it, but if you have better things to do — Game 1 of the World Series is underway, after all — the article details the predation of a woodpeckers’ nest by rat snakes in a tree across the street from our house. The action took place in the summer of 2018.<\/p>\n

That tree was riddled with holes that were perfect for habitation by woodpeckers and squirrels, but which were probably also symptomatic of a less than healthy organism. Sure enough, we awoke on Monday morning to find* that the storm that moved quickly through our neighborhood during the early morning hours took a dramatic toll.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

The tree was standing — and falling — in a vacant lot, so nothing else was damaged (and there were no other trees in the neighborhood damaged by the storm). I found it interesting that the top half of the tree was leafed out and seemingly healthy, but the bottom half — the foundation — was obviously faulty and insufficient to maintain the integrity of the structure. (Gee, that almost sounds Biblical<\/a>, doesn’t it?)<\/p>\n

My West Texas heritage causes me to mourn the loss of any tree, but this one has a sordid past and I doubt I’ll miss it not having a future. I suspect the local woodpeckers will agree. And the snakes won’t care, seeing as how they’re snakes.<\/p>\n

*MLB<\/acronym> and I actually walked past the fallen tree and never noticed it until about an hour later. In our defense, we had just finished a run and were more focused on getting home before we collapsed than on the presence of an already collapsed tree.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/dpiv><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alert Gazette readers may recall this post, in which I chronicle one of the most dramatic nature-related encounters we’ve had the privilege to witness since moving to the Texas Hill Country. I think it’s worth your time to check it, but if you have better things to do — Game 1 of the World Series… Continue reading R.I.P. Snake Tree<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-texas-hill-country","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7584,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280\/revisions\/7584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}