My Little Oak Project This Year
So, I got this idea, right? For 2024, I wanted to really get to know the old oak trees around my place. Not just, “oh, that’s a nice tree,” but really watch them. I called it my “oaks post time 2024” thing in my head. Sounds a bit daft, maybe, but it was about seeing when they’d “post” their big changes, you know?
The whole thing started pretty simple. I just began taking my usual walks, but with a specific mission. Every day, or most days anyway, I’d go out and just look at a few particular oaks I’d picked. A big one down by the creek, a couple of younger ones in the park. I wasn’t doing any fancy science stuff, no measuring tapes or soil samples. Just my eyes, mostly. Sometimes I’d jot down a quick note in a little book – “leaves still green,” “first hint of brown on the edges,” “squirrels going mad today.” That sort of thing.
And what I found, or what I think I found, was that the “post time” for these oaks, when they really started to show the season, felt a bit… off this year. Or maybe I was just paying more attention. People say things are changing, weather’s all over the place. And I reckon I saw a bit of that. One week it felt like autumn was here full swing, then we’d get a blast of warm weather and the trees almost seemed confused. Like they’d started to post their “autumn update” and then thought, “hang on, maybe not yet.”
- The big creek oak, that old fella, he held onto his green for ages. Longer than I remember from past years.
- Then, when the change did come, it was like a rush. Bam! All brown and gold almost overnight.
- The younger ones in the park were a bit more hesitant, patchy.
It wasn’t some groundbreaking discovery, I know. I’m not writing a paper on it. But it was my little practice, my way of connecting with something real. You walk around, everyone’s glued to their phones, posting their own lives, right? And here are these massive living things, doing their own “posting,” on their own schedule. It kind of puts things in perspective.
Honestly, at the start, I thought it might be a bit boring. Just looking at trees. But it wasn’t. It was actually pretty calming. And it made me notice more. Not just the trees, but the birds, the insects, the way the light changed. It’s funny what you see when you actually decide to look.
So yeah, that was my “oaks post time 2024” experiment. Nothing fancy, just me and some trees. But I think I’ll keep doing it. It’s a good habit, I reckon. Makes you slow down a bit. And who knows what they’ll “post” next year, eh?
