Following a Tree 2024

 I took a photo of the first Oak tree up the lane on the 27th January to start a year of Following a Tree. 

Here it is this month, after a month of frequent rain and  hardly any cold weather. It looks much the same.

I've realised this is not the best tree for photos as it's on the other side of the ditch so I can't get close up.

These are the two Oaks further up the lane, the right side of the ditch for photographing the trunk and close up of the leaves and buds.

Who lives in a home like this?

And Ivy is a home for all sorts and a food source for many insects too

Oak trees are one of 500 trees of the Quercus family. The largest and longest-lived of Britain's native trees.

The monarch oak, the patriarch of trees,

Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degree;

Three centuries he grows, and three he stays

Supreme in state, and in three more decays.

John Dryden                             

In the past oaks were often used to mark the boundaries of English parishes and local dignitaries and villagers would "Beat the Bounds" and walk the boundaries once a year reciting passages from the gospels.

In plant lore the oak is a symbol of courage, independence, faith, longevity, fire, stability, honour and reward. The tree was sacred to the sky and thunder gods, particularly Jupiter, the supreme deity of Roman mythology and was known as Jove's tree and could not be struck by lightening in a storm.

The oak is a symbol of England and was on the badge of the Stuarts. A sprig of oak leaves was worn in button holes and caps on 29th May to commemorate the birthday of Charles II who hid in an oak after the battle of Worcestor in 1651.

The oak had all sorts of uses in medicine. Culpepper said the bark, leaves and powdered acorn cups 'bind and dry very much'. The inner bark and the thin skin covering covering the acorn was advised for those spitting blood, while the bark and powdered acorn was said to be an antidote to poisonous herbs and medicine.

Ground acorns have been used in times of hunger to make a flour but more usually used to feed pigs although there was some advice on this.

Though good store of acorns the porkling do fat

Not taken in season may perish of that,

If pig do start rattling and choking in throat

Thou loosest thy porkling - a pig to a groat!

Information from my book ' The Treasury of Tree Lore' by Josephine Addison and Cherry Hillhouse.

It was a foggy morning when I walked up the lane. I should have waited an hour because the fog cleared to give a day WITHOUT RAIN! Such a rare occurrence this month that it needs the capital letters.

It needs more than one day without rain to stop the water running off the fields - but the newly laid land drains are working well.

Back Tomorrow

Sue