That Old Twisted Tree

"Twisted" is one of those words with serious negative connotations, but with the help of Evan and a dictionary it is the 8th of 8 meanings.

When I bought the Farm it was a riot of collapsed fences, buildings, poison, overgrowth, etc... Somethings were replaced like the training oval of an earlier posting, but not everything. The architect and landscaper had a field day in what they thought they could do; however, they ran into my hatred of killing trees needlessly.

Don't get me wrong, I own two chainsaws and burn wood to heat my house, and my greenhouse, but so far I've been able to do that with the ones that had to be moved or fell down.

The landscaper come architect, wanted to get rid of the three trees in the picture, two locusts and an ash. And so an argument began, why redo the fence, cut the poison and cut the grass with those old twisted trees dominating the perspective.

My argument boiled down to three points:

1) the trees reminded me of me, aka twisted
2) they represented a true farm vs a suburban scape
3) they had been there a long time, and would (probably) be there after both of us were gone

I thought of that tree along the lines of the preferred definitions in 1-7, specifically "to be entwined so as to impart a single thread", and "to have a coiled or spiral shape".

The trees were planted by the original farmers (held in the same family since 1740's), who used them for fences (especially the Locust's in this area), nuts, fruit, shade etc. they were part of the single thread of "a farm". And they were changed to be twisted by their circumstance: the wind, being planted on a bank, etc.

Ever since I was a kid I felt that I was part of a single thread of the lives of the people I knew and who I didn't they made up my family, my church, and the town that I lived in. Time and experiences changed me (not always for the better!), but thankfully the "soil" that I was "planted in", the "rain and the sunshine" etc., allowed me to live.