Ancient Trees

 You know there alot of people who do not like juniper trees, if so, why do they chose to live here?
Mom always said this  and the Holy land are the only places that these specific grow.  Always made me feel good.
We would go out just before Xmas and get pieces of the trees, with LOTS of berries on them and bring into the house.  It always evokes a feeling and smell of Xmas to me.  It is  strong, that smell.  You REALLY have to like it. Used to send some to friends in Iowa at XMAS and she finally told me to NOT send it, as it smelled up the whole house for weeks after!!! Wellllllll, that IS the point....
Altho i do have to say that one year mom decided to cut a smaller tree and bring in the house to decorate and it WAS a bit much. and she did finally agree......
On the brochure  for her memorial service i placed a stately Juniper tree... she would have liked that.

And nothing smells better after a rain...

And when we lived in the Valley and were over here visiting, after the mildew and musty smell of there it we could always tell when we got the Central Oregon by the spicy smell of the Juniper tree...
When we were selling the farm out O'Neil Way in Redmond in the mid 60's one group of potential buyers would not even drive all the way out to look the place over as it smelled too much of 'gin'!!
(we lived a mile off the paved road on a ditch road)

 Many of these trees grown right out of pile of rocks... have even seen them with branches leaning on a rock..

BLM does treat them as weeds tho and thins
them out regularly.

And for firewood, some people don't like as it still leaves that smell of juniper in the smoke as it is burning...

Have also heard that they seed only after being eaten by a bird then getting pooped out... such a story,  You will regularly see them growing along a fence line.  You can tell where fence lines used to be by a straight line of juniper trees.

 they have knots and holes in them, sometimes they will be hollow... still growing..
branches on the ground half broken off and still growing,,,,
They are nothing if not persistent....

I do love going for drives tho and seeing all the different configurations,  liked driving about in Arizona and the saguaros too! THOSE had lots of twist and bends and made some really funny different cacti....

This tree looks as if it has been struck by lightening and it is still growing and living even with a branch down on the ground, the whole thing is not yet dead.... still surviving...

Aren't they lovely tho?

They don't like LOTS of water it seems and you can see them sitting in watered/irrigated fields and turning brown or dead...

Take Care and God Bless