{"id":102610,"date":"2016-08-04T11:31:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T15:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=102610"},"modified":"2017-06-29T15:36:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T19:36:38","slug":"video-after-the-fall-what-happened-to-the-quads-massive-hobbit-maple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2016\/08\/04\/video-after-the-fall-what-happened-to-the-quads-massive-hobbit-maple\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: After the fall, here’s what happened to the Quad’s huge ‘hobbit’ maple"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\n\t
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With the maple now gone, there's a hole in the canopy where the sun comes in. (Jay Burns \/ Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Lead groundskeeper Mike Adams takes a minute to watch the tree removal on July 29. (Jay Burns \/ Bates College) <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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The northern tooth fungus likely created the sugar maple's craggy \"hobbit-ness.\" (Jay Burns \/ Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Bill Bergevin, the college's landscape architect, takes a look at the final, 20-foot section of trunk that was felled on July 29. (Jay Burns \/ Bates College) <\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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After sawing through its base, workers from Whitney Tree Service push over the final 20 feet of the sugar maple that toppled on the evening of July 28, 2016. (Josh Kuckens \/ Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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\u201cThe hobbit-ness of it \u2014 so gorgeous,\u201d said Professor Emerita of Biology Sharon Kinsman as she watched a local tree service remove a huge, old sugar maple that had toppled over the previous evening, July 28, during a thundershower.<\/p>\n

The tree, about 20 feet of which was left standing, was famously gnarled and craggy, with a crack up its side \u201cthat you could put your hand all the way into,\u201d said Kinsman, explaining its hobbit quality.<\/p>\n

It stood tall about 40 paces from the Quad-side door of Carnegie Science Hall and was about a century old, give or take 20 years, judging from a ring count, though counting was hard due to the aforementioned cragginess.<\/p>\n

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Call the kids and your inner kid: Log loader, chipper, and chain saws in action, plus a final “TIMBER!”<\/em><\/p>\n