Sunrise No. 492 of 1,600+
- Sunrise time: 6:26
- Azimuth: 64° ⇡
- Did the sun rise: Yes
- Was the sun visible: Yes
- Felt like: 34 ºF
- Air Temp: 34 ºF
- Humidity: 67%
- Wind: 1 mph ⇡
- Wind gust: 2 mph
Exposure
- 17mm
- f/16.0
- 1/60 sec
- 400
Lakeshore Boulevard, Marquette, MI
0.7 mile commute
📍 46° 33' 45" N, -87° 23' 21" W
Musings [487 words]
The amount of change, subtle and not-so-subtle, has really caught my eye as I go into this second year of sunrising, mostly along the same shoreline. The documentation has been a good reminder, small changes in the environment and scenery that are never noticed by most, you’d only notice if you’re in those places often.
Today was the saddest of those small changes in the environment that I’ve noticed so far.
This massive willow tree (I am kneeling beneath it here) was a staple along Lakeshore Boulevard, and suddenly when I walked by this morning, it was gone. It seems to hit harder during this pandemic when we are shut down and thinking about the number of deaths affecting everyone right now.
A year ago the road was washed out (also seen in these outtakes and the outtakes below) by two epic Lake Superior storms. The city promptly, and rightly, determined it was time to move the road a few hundred feet in from the shore after being washed out repeatedly.
With the new road construction, I don’t know if this tree had to go, but how it went could have been much differently.
I love iconic trees, many of us do (am I right, @treesmqt?). And much like ourselves, our favorite trees will one day die. But I wish we celebrated it more, I wish we made a spectacle of it. I wish I knew this tree was coming down, it was special.
I mourn the loss of a tree, and I’m not unique in this.
What happened to the wood? Where did it go? It could have been the means of countless wood workers, a table, a wooden bowl, a spoon, and the list goes on. I hope this tree was given a proper afterlife. To see it’s dead corpse, ripped from the ground, laying on the side of some road construction made me ache.
Our landscapes will change, but let’s do more to celebrate our our landscape before we demolish it.
Are tree funerals a thing? This tree deserved one.
On Cairns
Since today’s sunrise selection is of a cairn, I’d also like to write about that. But for today, I won’t let cairns take away from the focus of this tree.
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