Asteroid Sleuth: The Case of the Beleaguered Birch
Sometime during the night of September 4-5, 2024, I lost an old friend, who had been with me most of my life. I refer not to a being of flesh and blood, but one of leaf and bark: one half of a two-trunk birch clump in my front yard came crashing down, which had been on the property since the early ‘60s. Although the trees had been failing since I took over the property in 2019, with large upper branches dying off and rotting out, to fall onto the lawn, I had no idea how truly weak the tree was. No heavy ice storm or blowing hurricane winds heralded its end – my birch simply gave up.