Slate quarry

Diemelsee-Adorf (51.366116 | 8.793568)

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Peculiar deciduous forest on a slate mine abandoned over 300 years ago.

Two men were standing on a rock face, the skeleton of a cow at their feet, talking about their lives as good-for-nothings. About the same age. They had only met an hour ago. Now they were wondering how they had come up with this topic. They had actually just wanted to visit the slate quarry near Adorf. But the place was obviously not only interesting from a geological point of view. It gave them some unusual ideas. The men realized that their two fathers had thought nothing of their sons. They were called good-for-nothings. One of them learned various trades and later made a career in business. He said: "I only realized at an advanced age that it was always about showing my father up." The other became a journalist, he also discovered late in life that his father was always breathing down his neck when he wrote; he won awards for his reports - to the point of total exhaustion.

I recount this episode because it shows that places of the soul can inspire unusual thoughts and conversations. In this case, was it the unusual growth of the surrounding trees that led us to such existential topics? The branches of the surrounding spruce trees have turned light brown after the last dry, hot summers. Because they only develop shallow roots, they cannot reach deeper, moist soil layers during dry periods. They die of thirst. A species on the dying branch. This tree species was never actually native to the Sauerland. It was planted in the hope of making a quick buck. Now it turns out that the thinking was too short-sighted.

Even the pines, accustomed to drought and thirst, are visibly suffering. They are clawing their way into the southern slope at the edge of the slate quarry. Stunted, crouched, twisted. Every year of hardship has dealt them a blow, and they crouch and writhe like a child being beaten. But they hold their own in this extreme location, which puts their tenacity to the test in dusty-dry and strong winds. True survivors. You could be forgiven for thinking that they are trying to prove something to someone. Look here, no good, I'm holding out!

I enter the ditch, the actual slate quarry. A cow must have crashed a few years ago. White bones lie scattered at the foot of the rock face, the skull already covered in a fine layer of green moss. How short the lives of cows, people and spruces are compared to geological time spans! The gray-brown, very tough rock we are looking at is evidence of the long breath of the earth's history. Flint shale, which has its origins in the ocean that existed here eons ago. Over the course of many centuries, corals built up underground mountains with their calcareous skeletons: Reefs, the largest structures created by living creatures on earth. 380 million years ago, the water warmed up, the corals died en masse and the reef disintegrated. Its limestone layers were compressed under great pressure and baked in the fire of volcanic eruptions.

This slate was quarried in the Middle Ages. However, the slabs were thick and heavy and were only used to cover house roofs in times of need. The mine was abandoned around 1600.

Before I go, I would like to visit a kindred spirit. He has lived at the Schieferkuhle for 200 years. This hornbeam is no sissy. And it's not a beech either, but a member of the birch family. Its bark has developed a net-like surface, as if it were woven from thick, greenish ropes. The two main trunks branch out many times. What at first glance appears stubborn and vital is actually a survival strategy. The tree has been repeatedly nibbled at by sheep and has had to grow new branches in order to be able to stretch towards the life-giving sunlight. Another one that, contrary to expectations, has become something after all. I have to laugh - released, liberated. A good place to confront the old constraints of proof with humor.

Author: Michael Gleich