Burnt out rowan

After torrential rain and ferocious winds yesterday the stillness of this silver morning enticed me out for a welly wander. This photo is from the top of the garden looking east.
Below is a photo of the birch, cypress and rowan clump in the middle of which is my fire basket. The wee shed in the front was once a goose house and then henhouse; now it acts as small woodshed.  The top corner is behind all that.

Oops!

It seems a spark must have got into the hollow trunk of the old rowan and, without noticeable smoke and through the drenching rain, it has burnt out the rotting wood. It must have been incredibly dry in there! The remaining part of that tree, seen above the goose house, still looks fine. It will be interesting to see what happens next spring.

So my unsmothering of the rowans under the cypress will continue over the winter. Not that the boggy brae is short of rowans; I've lost count of the number of rowan seedlings all over the place. Left to go wild the garden would soon turn into a forest of birch, rowan, holly, sallow, oak, wild cherry and beech. I find that a reassuring thought even if there were rhododendrons in the mix. I read somewhere that before the last ice age there were native rhododendrons in Britain anyway. Nothing stays the same for long.