Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

The Crooked Forest

Instantaneous pressure changes can cause severe damage to trees, buildings and human beings.Prompt for Monday, April 5
The Crooked Forest
Location: West Pomerania, Poland
This Polish forest lives up to its name, with hundreds of peculiar pine trees. Several hundred pine trees were planted there in the 1930s and grew with an almost 90-degree bend at their base, making them look like fishing hooks. Some believe that a technique or human tool was actually used to make the trees curve this way, while others speculate that a winter snowstorm or some other damage could have given this fascinating forest its interesting shape.

Give us your own creative reason why the trees are this way.

The Crooked Forest

Saturday evening, someone on the road, where I live, set off a percussion bomb. Houses in the area felt the repercussions of the compacted air waves. How close you live to the actual place the bomb is set off depends on how much the trees, ground and house might shake. Instantaneous pressure changes can cause severe damage to trees, buildings and human beings.

When I saw the picture of the Crooked Forest I immediately wondered if this was the result of some percussion airwaves caused by bombing in 1945 as the Russians advanced on East Prussia.

1940”s Greifenhagin, 15° 15' N / 14° 14' E was a thriving city. It had a local court, Catholic Parish, Protestant church, and a synagogue. Small factories employed inhabitants. The city was located near the river Odra on the German border. The population claimed river water rights for the population. In 1945 the city was renamed Grefino.

Pine is used for planking in boats. The wood has a uniform texture. It resists warping and swelling. The textured wood also resists shrinkage.

Another use for pine is in furniture production. Pine is easily grown and is a renewable resource. The wood makes a strong low cost furniture, chairs, pews for churches, tables, and other types of useful products. It paints well. The knots in the pine make a scenic rustic product, that is appealing to the eye as well a useful in a home.

Guess what? The crooked forests are pine trees. Someone else put forth the following theory. A group of wood workers or tree farmers bent the very young trees into this form for a specific use in a wood workers culture. By growing and forming the trees for their own use it had an economical use.

There are perhaps 400 crooked trees in the Crooked Forest. This same forest also has trees that are not bent into this form. Both straight and crooked trees are approximately the same age. This is an indication of a tree plantation.

Rumors of extreme cruelty proceeded the advancing Russian Armies. The Germans who were suppose to be organizing civilian movement away from the progressing war front procrastinated. Civilians fled into Germany without any organization. Children in families died from starvation and actually froze to death. Many civilians were shot by Germans or died from exposure as they fled.

Perhaps an army battalion bent the young trees over to use as seats while they took a break from destroying the area. In any event, the countryside left a mystery. The trees are a silent scene that causes curiosity in tourists, who visit the area.

Word count - approximately 446 (counted by the Journal 7)