By Jodi Levine
The most frequent question I am asked by friends in the Earthroots community is “how are the oaks doing?” It’s usually asked with hesitation and hope.
This past summer has been busier than usual at Big Oak Canyon. Over 30 volunteers, staff and two arborist companies have put in much work tending the trees and the surrounding forest. We are so grateful for all the work that has been accomplished! There is a sense of relief knowing that the majority of infected trees in our 10 acre common-use areas have been tended to for this year. Yet there are still about 29 acres that have not yet been surveyed or tended, so the work is not complete.
The biggest visual difference at Big Oak Canyon is that there are now about 20 oaks painted with white lime wash, no longer camouflaged. When you walk up the trail their striking white trunks pop out among the green, brown and gray tones we are accustomed to. These white trees are a sign of protection, where staff and volunteers have spent hours cleaning the trunks and painting on many layers of lime wash. Our hope is that this effort will prevent new beetle eggs from hatching and boring into the living layers of these oak trees. Time will tell if it is successful. If there were beetle larvae inside the trunks prior to being painted, those adults will emerge and we will see exit holes through the white. This lime experiment was designed by Shane Brown, and is running concurrently to other treatments. It will take 1-2 years to see results and collect the data. We are hopeful. This process would not have been accomplished without the community of donors who provided the funds possible to tend to the trees and the forest with such care. Thank you.
In addition to the lime wash, over 100 additional trees were treated with insecticides to slow down the infestation. This decision was not made lightly. This is our first time since Earthroots arrived at Big Oak in 2011 that we have used any insecticides on the property. There were over 35 scientists, lay people, and agencies guiding us to this decision, which ultimately was made to buy time until a proven holistic approach is available. If we had only used the lime wash, and it was found ineffective, there would have been a lot of regret at losing more oaks. At this time, there are no approved and reliable non-toxic treatments for protecting the oak trees from the gold spotted oak borer. We are dancing with time, navigating how to care for the forest with the tools and resources available to us.
In the Spring, Shane Brown and volunteers removed 7 highly infested GSOB oak trees. In July, contractors removed 5 more. It takes incredible strength – physically and emotionally – to cut down a tree that has been living for more than 50 or 100 years. This summer, the physical work was done mostly by S & H arborists with grant funding through Cal Fire. We offer a special thank you to Mike Boeck for coordinating that opportunity. We are grateful for all of your support.
The emotional side of taking down a tree is more delicate. I shared with Adelia Sandoval that the trees would be coming down, and she offered to come on the land to be with us. Adelia is the Spiritual Overseer of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation. She and her partner Mariah came to sing to the trees, to bring her cultural traditions, stories and songs, and to listen. Adelia shared how oak trees have been a vital resource to her people for thousands of years, and how if her people were still connected to the oaks now as they were in earlier times, and were witness to the devastation of seeing ancient trees dying, they would be weeping.
Oak trees are more than a food source to the native people of California. Oak trees guided the activities throughout the seasons. In the times before colonization, the village would gather acorns when they became ripe in the fall, dry them for storage, weave baskets to store them in, and tend the stored acorns so that food was available year round. To eat acorns, they need to be cracked open, sorted, finely ground, leached (washed with water) to remove the bitter tannins, and cooked. When the annual activities of your whole community revolves around a food source, you become one with it. It nourishes you, gives you life. Adelia mentioned a quote from Braiding Sweetgrass, about how in some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us”.
Adelia, Mariah and I walked to each of the trees before they were cut down and offered a song honoring the spirit of the tree. We sang in the Acjachemen language, accompanied by clapper sticks, and we wept.
So to answer the question that everyone is asking me, “How are the oaks doing?” My answer is that grief and joy are carried in the same basket. I feel sadness at the suffering of the trees, and joy that our community is coming together to support the forest in new ways, and that we are growing and learning so much. I am hopeful that we will find a path to continue to care for the oaks, and appreciate all of your support.
Our forest needs ongoing care. If you are in a position to help fund this work, please give today.
Thank you.
