Plans are all very well and good; I have made a few myself. Once you get underway your plan may or may not hold up to unfolding events. Unanticipated complications often arise, and then you face a choice of whether to stick to the plan or go with the flow. I remember reading that General Custer had a plan at the Little Bighorn, and he insisted on sticking with it even when reports started coming in that events on the ground were going awry.

In 2018, eighteen years after being received in donation, I decided the time had come for this specimen to have its public debut and it was chosen to be the logo tree for the twenty-third Carolina Bonsai Expo. The unintended effect of the dangling branch revealed itself when I was making the Expo logo image. Suddenly what I saw before me took on a certain shape so clearly visible that once seen I couldn't un-see it. It was the image of a rearing horse.