8-31-2020

I counted 438 growth rings, checking as I went (if you zoom in, you probably can too). I figured another 15 years at scale, for the center that is rotted away, though it’s probably considerably more. For example, I have Sugar Pine saplings partially shaded in the woods right behind my house that were three inches tall twenty years ago and are now eight inches tall with a diameter of about a quarter inch. So this tree was likely nearly five hundred years old. For most of that time, it lived in a primeval world, in which humans were just another part of this richly intricate ecosystem. Then it was cut down merely for some man’s make-believe profit, to pay for the upkeep of his ridiculously extravagant summer mansion, one of many.