Lesson From a Pine Tree

The lowest branch on the pine tree from which the bald eagle surveys the bay baffles me. Not the branch itself as much as the joint of the branch where it originates from the trunk. It's a branch-joint like no other, in that it is not the usual upward sprouting V-shaped variety, but a ball-and-socket sort of arrangement.

Though I'm sure it can not, it gives the appearance of being able to pivot, like one of Barbie's legs, to the other side of the tree---as if, were I strong enough, I could swing it around in a half arc, up across and down again to point in the opposite direction.

I wonder what act of nature so injured this branch at its base, and at its colossal will to keep on growing despite the setback it must surely have suffered. dkm