One of the things I love about our farm is the abundance of trees of various kinds and character. Among my favourites, this beautiful old maple I call “The Crooked Tree.” The shape of this tree alone seems against the odds, but let us continue …

On March 27, 2016 our area of central Ontario endured a 24-hour ice storm. Sadly, the big, old, crooked maple and its long-time partner across the lane (along with many others about the property) couldn’t take the stress of the one-inch ice accretion upon its limbs and broke down.

It broke my heart to see such a beautiful tree meet such an unhappy end.

It was so mangled that it seemed to cut it down was the obvious choice. And then we wondered about having a local sculptor come in to carve a rearing, defiant horse into it. You know, symbolic of rising above the situation.

In the end, and after much soul searching and upon finding sappy evidence that the tree, despite its terrible wound, was very much alive, we opted to give it another chance. We had an arborist make a diagonal cut across the tree from just above the shoot where the orange string is in the above image, hoping that perhaps this bit of assistance might help it to rise again.

And believe it or not, against all odds this crooked old tree has actually found a way to thrive.

It would have been so easy to right off this broken down and battered old maple. I’m glad we didn’t. Now I look at it as a testament to the resilience of both nature and the human spirit.

We are never so broken that we cannot rise again with the right support and love around us. We are how we choose to respond to the slings and arrows of life. We either endure in strength, or we allow ourselves to be defeated.

The scars become a testament to our character and provide an unexpected beauty all their own.

I love happy endings.

Thanks for visiting …

Dorothy

~*~

©Dorothy Chiotti … All Rights Reserved 2017

Weekly Photo Challenge: Against the Odds