Above you will find a photo of a marvel and a metaphor.
A poplar tree, in its eagerness and compulsion to grow, has completely engulfed a pair of horseshoes, and its hidden treasure was recently discovered.
The photo came to us from Sela Balzer of Langham, Sask. It seems that Allan Balzer had been offered some firewood by area farmer Doyle Wiebe, who wanted to remove a row of old poplar trees from his land.
While handling a log, Balzer’s splitter sliced past a dark metal object, wrote Sela Balzer, in her note accompanying several photographs.
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The object turned out to be a pair of horseshoes.
Allan Balzer showed his find to Wiebe, “who immediately solved the mystery as to how they could have gotten into the centre of the tree,” Sela wrote. “Wiebe recalled hanging the horseshoes on a branch of a young poplar tree in the back yard of the family farm. He believes the tree would have been 10 years old at the time.
“Those horseshoes, which were hung on a small branch tucked right up to the trunk of that young tree back in 1981, were never touched again, and 28 years later, on May 14, 2009, … the poplar tree had grown to a diameter of two feet.”
This story, this slice of life (and slice of tree) is appealing on a number of levels, not least of which is sheer amazement that Wiebe was able to recall the time and place he put those horseshoes back in 1981.
Let us stipulate, as individuals who have seen many farmsteads, including our own, that it’s easy to lose track of the odd item, particularly one you aren’t using every day.
And what shall we make of this chance discovery, made only when Wiebe decided to offer it for another purpose? Perhaps there’s a lesson here that unexpected gifts can be discovered if we’re willing to consider the familiar from new perspectives.
But the crux of the matter, of course, is the wonder of nature. Obviously there have been some good years for tree growth since 1981, allowing that poplar to grow from sapling to two-footer and slowly swallow its accidental ornaments.
Much like an oyster builds a pearl around a grain of sand, this tree protected itself by working its way around the unusual and holding it close to its heart.
Right about now, you might be thinking, “come on, it’s just a tree and some horseshoes, not the Rosetta stone.”
But then you might also have to admit that it’s our fascination with nature and agriculture, and their inextricable, constantly surprising linkage, that make our farming lives so interesting.
