The Oak Story Continues

So the amusing speculation about why oaks explode when there in no rain or lightning still remains a mystery.  So many things in life are.  I am positive that the change of our beautiful 85 degree weather to 105 over night had something very much to do with it.

Laila Zaccaraiah, my agent at Allstate, mentioned that I was the second call that day regarding an exploding oak.  I had even seen an old oak fall on a barn in hot weather before.

Heat causes things to expand and if the liquid sap in the tree expanded more rapidly then the dry crust of the tree could handle then maybe it was too much for the oak and the tree had to give somewhere.  Down goes the branch on Gustavo's car.

So feet back down to reality.   Who is going to pay for his car?  I remember hitting a deer once when I was driving in the back country between Paso Robles and San Simeon to the horse farm owned by Mrs. William Randolph Hearst.  Boom.  No way around it.  The car insurance company paid 100%, no deductible out of my posket.  It was an "act of God" they said.  I think they took the deer fur off the bumper.  It wasn't my fault.

Regarding my homeowners policy: au contraire.  If we had maintained the tree properly which we did by removing excess dead wood from the frame and kept the oak healthy, then it wasn't our fault.  No liability, no payment.  If we neglected the tree and it was sickly, then it was out fault and the insurance company would pay for it.  Problem was then we look like neglectful people.  All that means is a recipe for the insurance company to raise our rates.  Catch 22.  Still no way to fairly get Gustavo's car fixed.

I asked Gustavo to call his car insurance company.  Hopefully they will shed some light on the situation and help out.  Meanwhil I'm feeling bad about his car and a $3126 bill.

My father used to say.  Don't bother paying insurance.  Take every penny that you spend on insurance: that's about 8-10% of my income and put it in investments.  You'll have a lot more money. I wonder if he was right.

The Exploding Oak

While I was working at my desk yesterday signing a new listing, the giant oak outside my window exploded.  There was a loud sound that you can imagine is the one written in the balloon over the cartoon guy that gets smacked on the head.  "Crack"  A hundred times louder.  I ran outside to find that a giant limb from the oak tree that oversees this place had fallen on the red van owned by the guys here putting in the garden pavers.  No one was hurt but it was a mess.  My second thought was the oak.  It looked Ok, just a big jagged opening into the pulp where the branch popped off.  Now a huge leafy branch caving in the roof and windshield of Augusto's car.

Why do oaks explode?  So the easiest example to explain is why oaks explode in lightning storms.  Basically they usually don't.  Why?  A single bolt of lightning carries a peak current that's ten thousand times the energy of a light bulb.  In a storm when the oak is wet they don't explode.  The water acts as a great conductor and the lighting might look pretty dramatic as it runs down the tree but it doesn't explode.  Now, if the oak is dry and the lightning strikes through the bark  and hits the water filled sap line, and runs down from the inside out and explodes the tree from the inside out.  Cool.  I knew a surfer once that was hit by lightning (twice) and was just fine.  He was also bitten by a Great White and did fine but I'm heading too far into the karma zone.   Back to the oak.

The bark of the oak is thicker than most other trees.  It generally takes much longer for anything to get through it including water.  That means that when lightning actually gets to the heart of the oak, the tree being dryer on the outside and wetter on the inside really looks dramatic when it explodes.

So in our case here it's summer and there's no lightning!  Yesterday was one of the hottest days of the year.  A friend of mine called in the afternoon to say their rabbit had collapsed.  I walked downtown and people were lying everywhere under the big trees at the library and the post office reading books or just not moving.  I took the butter out of the refrigerator to make a pie and within 20 minutes I coudn't get it all out of the paper.

So I have been trying to figure this out.  There are no shortage of blog spots that agree that on really hot days oak tree limbs fall.  I have seen a giant limb, almost one third of the tree, go down in September and take out a corner of a barn.  One answer I read was when its really hot the tree pulls back its liquids to the core depriving outgoing limbs from getting water.  The rapid drying out fractures the wood in weaker limbs.  Dead limbs don't go because they are already used to not getting water.  If the weather is hot for a long time and the temperature goes up slowly, the pull back affect is not as dramatic and the limb just dies.

So why that limb.  There are about 50 others like it that wouldn't have hit the car.  This is where my explanation comes in.  There have been workers here for a month.  Usually we don't have anyone out here.  One car maybe none a day.  Now there are at least 6 or seven cars driving around the oak several times a day.  I kind of like the electricity idea from the inside out.  There have been strange currents around here lately.  They are running heavy equipment.  The ground has been completely torn up albeit along way from the tree getting this big construction project completed.  The electricity (OK its knob and tube around here)  has been causing mini black outs and driving me crazy trying to work on the computer.  The oak is sick of it.  He wants these folks done.

I mentioned this to the contractor who gave me a really funny look.  Then he added.  My guys saw the whole thing happen.  The limb gave way missing Jeannine's car by inches.  She was here cleaning up things in the house.  It actually bounced backwards and upwards to land on the top of Augusto's car.  Nice.  Thanks Oak.

So I called my trusty insurance agent Laila Zaccaraiah at Allstate.  We've been with them for years.  "It's an act of God," I say.  "We shouldn't have any deductible!"  "You've been our faithful agent for years. We've never had a claim."  She's calling the adjuster.

California Dreaming of the Old Days

The other day I caught a clip from a movie shot in the 50's in technicolor. It had hauntingly beautiful clips of the California I knew growing up.  Images of waving fields of yellow mustard, trees heavy with luscious apricots, crashing waves on a pristine rocky Monterey Bay coastline and  people strolling down tree lined streets. What struck me was the fact that California is changing so rapidly and those calming images are disappearing.  Here in Silicon Valley we are becoming a metropolis of criss crossed highways and row housing. 

I grew up and was raised in a little town called Los Gatos, the cats.  The bobcat statues that were carved in the towns name still stand near the first off ramp  coming from the coast.  My late friend Kevin, another long time resident, called me one day to remark on a comment in our town paper, "Los Gatos is the town to see and be seen."  He too remembered the apricot orchards off Kennedy Road and fields of green and gold.  It struck him as funny how the focus here had changed.  Bentleys and beautiful people in running spandex and "chi chi" restaurants like 'Nicks on Main' are the town, not long stretches of open fields.   I have moved back to the family historical home after a long "walk about" the world.  Here in this home of my childhood I can feel the time that has gone by.   The house was the spot that they stopped the horses and watered them before they drove them up to the Novitiate.  In the last couple days I have seen a coopers hawk, an opossum, racoons, deer  and woodpeckers right outside my front door and yet I can walk to the town library and local coffee shop in about 5 minutes.  If the giant old oak that oversees the 3/4  acre could talk.

Los Gatos, once a destination spot for vacationing San Francisco folks, has the most amazing variety of old and graceful architecture.  A stroll through the neighborhood near Pennsylvania Ave will attest to that.  Next to a giant Craftsman with stained glass windows you might see a home that  could be called art deco.  Oddly enough it's  Netflix, a company that represents the present society, that supports the blend between plans for a library and the historical business buildings of East Main St. 

My father found this town after surviving two world wars and crossing America three times with two fighting toddlers in the back seat.  Its amazing to think that a man who spoke five languages stumbled on and stayed in this spot.   His  high school friend Czezlaw Miloscz, '84 poetry Nobel laureate remarked on this fact in his last book.  It will be nice to someday give the family home a face lift and help it to hold down some of the history of this town.  I don't want to imagine the day that the oak dies and with it the many animals that seem to find their way to this grandfathered property.

As a realtor I want to pass on the appreciation of the fine things we have around us.  No one should forget how fortunate we are to live in this valley.   I want to  teach those who come here to find a way to tend to this garden with the same respect for nature.  No matter what the news brings regarding economy and worry I have been fortunate to experience this place.  No matter what happens to me I have lived a life of which most people only dream.  It has been a time of prosperity and a haven of peace.  It has been the fullfillment of the american dream, the chance to live in a home that is safe in a land that is free.