You know how things can be going along rather smoothly with blue skies and sunshine, then all of a sudden, you find yourself between a rock and a hard place?
Quarry Park, with all its bedrock and spoils piles, exhibited a portfolio of examples of living creation dealing with an unyielding environment. But back to the smooth sailing for a moment….This aspen grove looks idyllic at the marshy end of one of the quarries, but not far below the snow and thin layer of soil is a deep layer of rock. The aspens grow in large clonal colonies derived from a single seedling. The extensive root system allows them to survive forest fires and thrive when growing over and between granite.
What is the story of this bent-over oak tree? How could such a large tree be bent at a ninety degree angle? Squirrel tracks in the snow showed how it was now used as a highway to the next tree.
It wasn’t until I was home and looking through photos that I noticed the huge iron staple below the wounded tree. Since it was adjacent to the quarry, perhaps the quarriers somehow used the tree and iron staple to hoist the blocks of rocks from the hole.
Two interesting saplings along the trail demonstrated that it wasn’t just rocks or iron that could put a tree in a hard place. This young, flexible tree was used for a deer rub. Bucks of all ages will rub the velvet off their antlers in late summer; then during the fall rutting season, the more mature bucks rub to attract does and warn away other bucks. The rub is a visual warning as well as an olfactory one, as the buck rubs the scent gland on his forehead against the exposed wood.
I didn’t look closely enough to tell if this buckthorn sapling was being strangled by its own or another’s branch, though the reddish twig suggests it is from another.
The last quarry on our hike was the only one with ice falls. Spring water flowed and froze on either side of the large plateau of granite where, miraculously, a sizable cedar tree was growing!
The snow-capped ice draped over the granite, and tiny trees pushed their way through the crevices of the rock face.
A green patch of moss with a head of white snow and a beard of ice nestled itself on a granite ledge.
The twigs of a tree were captured by the ice fall while its roots were wedged between rocks. Another tree caught between a rock and a hard place.
All of us will find ourselves in a very difficult situation at some time in our lives. It may be a physical challenge or a moral dilemma that offers two equally difficult or seemingly unacceptable choices. Sometimes we get ourselves into a tight spot when a person or situation looks like one thing but below the surface is really something else. Other circumstances or people can tear away at our defenses for their own purposes or wrap themselves around us so tightly that we can’t grow and be our best. At those times, we need to ask ourselves, “What’s my story? How did I get myself into this condition? And more importantly, how do I get myself out?” We need to connect to our colony of family and friends, the ones who sustain us through tough times with roots reaching with love and encouragement. It is possible to stand tall and prosper in spite of hardship, and like the ice that holds the twigs hostage, this too shall pass.
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