A Fond Farewell to a Beloved Tree

“This is not our world with trees in it. It's a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”

-The Overstory, Richard Powers

Trees are fixtures of regenerative farms.

In a practical sense, trees offer endless benefits to farming - they provide windbreak, serve as habitats for wildlife and beneficial insects, and enhance the permaculture of the landscape. 

But there’s an emotional element as well. Ask any farmer or land steward if they have a favorite tree on their land, and 9 times out of 10, they’ll have a quick answer, diving right into the unique facets of their preferred specimen. Farmers are likely to give their trees pet names, ascribe personality traits, and imbue symbolic significance upon them. 

So it was a real emotional blow to all of us here when we arrived at the farm the morning after a particularly windy storm to discover that the Burkett Farm favorite had fallen. 

Affectionately known as the Keebler Elf tree (see: pet names), this massive white oak featured a trunk spanning 60 inches across, with a human-sized hollow that could easily shelter a family of goofy, cookie-baking elves. While we never caught sight of the namesake, posing for photos in the hollow became a rite of passage for team members over the years. 

The canopy of our Keebler Elf tree stretched approximately 80 feet wide, providing shady cover for our shiitake mushroom logs, and serving as the backdrop for a pig roast, a kimchi workshop, and a cool spot to rest on a brutally hot August afternoon. 

We’ve also used the Keebler Elf tree as our measuring stick. Before we began to build out the farm in 2014, the tree was one of several that served as landmarks. As the farm has grown around it, the tree has been the fixed point of reference. As we underwent plans for constructing a farm building and educational space, we made sure to design around the oak, heeding its root system, and relying on it as part of the farm’s skyline. 

Word traveled quickly about the Keebler Elf tree’s destruction. We quickly started to plan for how we might repurpose the wood; farmers are nothing if not resourceful. Some of the smaller pieces were harvested to start new mushroom logs, finding their way back in the agroecology of our land. Larger pieces have been salvaged, in the hopes of constructing something - a table, perhaps? - to live on site as a memory of our giant. 

Text threads with former staff, many who now live in different parts of the country, lit up with the sad news. Photos were exchanged - poses in the hollow - and memories resurfaced, much like you’d do at a wake for a beloved friend. 

And as is typical at the end, you start wondering about the beginning. Our land manager, Greg, is a trained arborist, and estimated that the Keebler Oak could have been as old as 240 years old at the time of its falling. We imagined, for a moment, the Keebler as a seedling in 1785; in 1840; in 1900. What did it look like here, on this land, at that time? The thought train serves as a reminder that we are mere stewards here, playing a small role in a much larger, grander, epochal story. Humans are not the protagonists we convince ourselves we are. 

The Keebler Elf tree is survived by a daughter oak, which has grown up alongside it and will be carefully tended to by our team.