>>2779955I too love beeches. They were always the best trees to climb when I was a kid, especially the really big fat ones where you could just keep going up limb over limb. And at least in New England they were always the last trees to lose their leaves before winter. All the oaks and elms would be long bare but the beeches still had glorious yellow leaves through November.
I did something really bad once when I was about 13. I had a machete I found and one day I went into the woods and girdled a 100yo beech because I was bored. I heard that could kill a tree but I didn't really know at the time.
I forgot about that tree for twenty fucking years and found it again as an adult. Dead. Just as I had girdled it and I was stunned to see it still standing like that. I feel fucking awful about this still.
