05/09/2024
[A while back, I posted the short-version of "The Kurnell" - the one used by The Jefferson Jimplecute. Here is the full version - the one that will someday go in a book.]
The Kurnell
“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree…”
He’s a rugged and resilient ol’ coot, characterized by toughness and a determination that has earned him the nickname The Kurnell. He lives to the left of our driveway atop our homestead, the View from The Hill. He is a Texas Hickory tree, a generic term for the botanically challenged, those unable to discern between Pignut and Black hickories.
It was a chilly November day in 2016. Ms. Ellie and I parked in the grass on the side of Texas State Highway 8 north of Linden, clambered over a fatigued fence, high-stepped through waist-high thickets (bushlands to big-city folks), and scaled a steep 300-feet hill in hopes of finding our future homesite.
The westward view from atop the hill was spectacular – the realtor, a local hombre, estimated a distant tower to be “better’n fifteen miles from here, I’d say.”
Ms. Ellie stood silently facing the west for a good minute – not to be confused with a hot minute. She took a deep breath, made an about-face, took several steps forward, and, motioning like a football referee signaling a first down, pointed to a small clearing, “The front of the house will be right here.”
And that was that. And that’s how the Smiths ended up building a house with a something-to-write-home-about outdoor porch on top of a hill far away from the hurry-scurry of Houston – a hill densely covered with trees and grasses juxtaposed against red clay hillsides and gosh-wow-boy-oh-boy sunsets.
Before the ink had dried on the purchase agreement, this extraordinary hickory tree became a favored tree on the property. At that time, he had not introduced himself to me as “The Kurnell.” That introduction came on a frigid winter day in 2017 following a year of eye-catching transformations.
Each season ushers in a jambalaya of facial expressions and wardrobe changes. In mid-Spring, The Kurnell is covered with male pollen-producing flowers that gather together in green hanging clusters, as well as female flowers that give rise to fruit – one variety of this fruit is known as the “black truffle” of the nut world, a favorite among feral hogs with a bougie propensity.
During late spring and summer, The Kurnell looks pretty much like all the other tress, seamlessly blending into the landscape. His dark green leaves create a thick foliage that conceals his trunk and branches.
It is during the fall, after that first cold snap, that his personality really goes places. He proudly flaunts long magnificent leaves of yellow and gold. With nary a shy cellulose chain in his trunk, he grabs front and center stage for several eye-catching weeks.
The bone-chilling cold of winter completes The Kurnell’s annual life cycle. By winter’s onset, he has shamelessly disrobed and entered into his “nuddy” tree season, a blanket of brown leaves piled around his trunk and beneath his branches. A dozen robins, feverishly feasting on red dogwood berries a cricket pitch away, scarcely notice the old man’s battle scars, made evident by the shedding of his regalia.
The top of The Kurnell’s main trunk is missing. It is common knowledge that The Kurnell tangled with a tornado a few years ago and, according to local flora, could have just as easily gotten the short end of the stick.
Lele, one of the Red Oak sisters, dropped nearly a third of her acorns before her appointed time simply because she fretted to excess over The Kurnell’s wellbeing. “Life is not always as easy as falling off a stump,” sighed Becka, the oldest Red Oak sister, nodding to Fiona, the youngest sister.
Several Sweetgums closer to the front of the property insisted time and time again that The Kurnell was all the rage back in the day. Miss Cedrus, an adjacent cedar to The Kurnell, observed, “Even today, that boy ain’t short on looks. We all know that older hickories just get betta lookin’ with age.” Several younger, more tender, cedar trees shook their heads, dropping handfuls of vibrant blue berries as Miss Cedrus rambled on and on about The Kurnell’s particularities and what’s-under-the-hood ness.
(Oh, my, digression has the upper hand. Back to the tornado.)
Not all of the trees weathered the storm as well as The Kurnell. The twister snapped the tops from a cluster of pines on the back property line no more than a hundred feet from The Kurnell.
Soon thereafter, needles on the pines first turned yellow and then red, before dropping. Masses of resin developed on the bark surface and fine brown dust accumulated in bark crevices.
Even Miss Cedrus, who, through the muscadine vine, knows all the goings-on atop the hill, had no clue that tree borers had infested the pines. They’re sneaky like that. Over time these already-weakened trees gave up the sap and succumbed to an untimely death.
Fortunately, The Kurnell’s hickory DNA triumphed. As I said earlier, The Kurnell is a rugged and resilient ol’ coot.
In a bygone era, things might have been very different for The Kurnell. Perhaps in the 1800s, he would have been hewn down and fashioned into wagon wheels for pioneers heading westward. Many hickory trees were.
But that didn’t happen to The Kurnell. Instead, he was planted atop a mound of red clay and iron ore almost dead center in Cass County, Texas.
Those that know The Kurnell are filled with amazement and admiration at his uniqueness – uniqueness fashioned by the frenzied rage of a summer storm and the cold-bloodedness of winter winds.
Season after season guests of The View from the Hill clink their glasses and revel in his company, as do Miss Cedrus and the Red Oak sisters.
“…only God can make a tree.” – Joyce Kilmer
