Blue Oaks | drycrikjournal

Making the loop up Ridenhour Canyon through the Paregien Ranch yesterday to check stockwater and put out mineral and supplement tubs, I photographed a few trees to record the impact of our dry spring and prolonged heat spell. At the 2000-foot elevation it seems the impact is slightly less, but more apparent, in the less-healthy trees, or those that seem less-healthy to me, no expert. The only green in the tree below is mistletoe.

Paregien, July 20, 2013

Since the July 8th post , we’ve had a couple of windy days associated with monsoon flow into the Sierras that has denuded many of the oaks whose leaves had turned.

Paregien Ranch, July 20, 2013

Hawk’s nest exposed in the top, mistletoe to the side.

Looking towards the Great Western Divide, these young trees on the initial east slope that falls into Dry Creek seem especially hard hit.

Paregien Ranch, July 20, 2013

July 7, 2013

The Blue Oaks have shut-down dramatically in the past few days, apparently letting their leaves go to conserve moisture. We’ve had ten straight days of 100+ degrees, nothing abnormal for July. But last season we received less than 10 inches of rain, or 57% of the average of the seven years prior. Only once last season did we receive over an inch of rain in a 24-hour period on December 4, 2012. We’ve had no deep moisture.

I’ve seen this happen before after extended periods of excessive heat, more like 30 days straight over 100 degrees. But I don’t recall it happening so early in the summer, nor to such a large percentage of trees, what appears to be about 50% so far.

Most of these Blue Oaks are 100 years old, but there are a few grandfather trees that may be 200 or 300 years old. One has to assume that they are not only rooted in the right place, but that they have survived worse years than this.

I’ve misplaced my “Life of an Oak”, an informative book, and found nothing on the Internet about this phenomenon that is probably shared by many species of trees. We will monitor as we go forward.