I never seem to get tired of pictures of huge trees coming down....I know, it's wrong

Usually they take them down in fairly small pieces, but we decided it would be okay to let the top of this tree, a dead white oak, fall into the semi-wild area of seedling camellias. The piece you see in midair was incredibly large. Amanda told us that she could feel the shock in China Valley which is about 300 feet (I measured it on Google Earth) and one huge ravine away. The plan worked; the top disappeared into the camellias and a few choice cuts removed the odd branch sticking up. As bad as I feel about the tree dying, it is good to be able to leave the wood in the garden in an inconspicuous place. Forests expect and require a good supply of rotting wood. In this case we could oblige.