The Glorious Glow of Bark in the Sunset Light

Posted on by

Photo #598: Campground BarkLocation Taken: Agawa Bay, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Time Taken: June 2010

I should write a long post about this, but well, who can say much about bark? I mean, it’s bark! Tree covering!

A rather unusual tree covering, mind you. I’m not entirely certain what type of tree it is, aside from “coniferous” and “grows along Lake Superior”. There’s a lot of trees that match that pair of descriptions.

I checked the bark patterns of cedar and jack pines, both of which are similar and match those descriptions. But neither is a close enough match, alas. So it’s “generic pine tree” to me.

Or perhaps “campground pine tree”. I’ve seen this bark pattern before, at various campgrounds I’ve stayed at over the years. It seems to be one that is well behaved and pretty enough for those who set up the campgrounds to decide not to chop down. Either that or it grows fast on marginal soil and claims the spots between the camp sites. Tough to tell which came first and all, since these trees do grow fast.

It’s an interesting bark, if you look at it. It’s obviously designed to slough off if damaged, with many layers of thin weak bark rather than one thick layer of sturdy bark like you see on many trees. Both patterns have their benefits, mind you. The weak bark means that you have fewer expenditures for repair because the damaged aspects fall off, but the solid bark means fewer things damage you in the first place. The weaker bark also probably deals with being forced outward by the tree’s growth better than the solid bark, since it’s designed to be able to crack as needed. That’s probably why you see weaker layered barks on fast growing pine trees and hard solid bark on slow growing deciduous trees.

This sort of bark also makes excellent mulch for gardens, which is where I’ve seen the vast majority of this stuff. It naturally forms small pieces of water, weed, and rot resistant organic matter, after all. I wonder if they even have to cut down the trees to harvest it, given how it just falls off the trees anyway. Mind you, they probably do chop down the trees anyway, in order to get the wood, and the bark mulch is just a side product.

Huh, I guess I’m one of those who can say much about bark after all.

  

Walking a Pathless Path, No One Ahead to Light the Way

Posted on by

Photo #597: Pathless MeadowLocation Taken: Powder River Pass, Wyoming
Time Taken: June 2010

I think I’ve figured out part of why I have such trouble figuring out which path in life I want to take: I have no heroes.

Now, I have had various people who I’ve looked up to and modeled parts of myself off of, but none of them have had that key “I want to BE them!” quality. They’ve all had various flaws and quirks here and there that make me say “no, their path is not the one for me.” Which doesn’t mean those paths are wrong for them, mind you, just that I can’t follow in their footsteps.

I don’t even have any historical figures I want to imitate. If I like someone enough to do so, I like them enough to research (not that that’s tough to trigger for me). And before long I find out about their flaws and quirks that change them from Awesome Heroes of the Past into, well, normal humans.

…That was what triggered this realization, by the way. I ran into the question “What’s your favorite historical figure?” and realized I couldn’t answer it. A few names did pop into my brain (Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, and Ada Lovelace, in case you’re wondering), but none of them I like enough to be a true favorite. Not even quite enough to be a shared victory.

On the positive side, this does mean I’ve never been betrayed by a hero being different than I imagined. And I’ve never, as the saying goes, had my childhood ruined. I’m rarely disappointed by people around me, for I saw their negatives as well as their positives (which, oddly enough, has left me with a generally good opinion of humanity).

But since I never saw someone walking a path I wanted to take, I’m having to forge my own. And well, if you’ve ever had to go through thick snow, you know how much more difficult shoveling your own path is as compared to going on a cleared route. And I don’t know what’s beneath that snow, or even what’s on the other side of that hill I’m climbing. But I do know that if I make it there, I’ll be the first to see where my path leads.

And perhaps one day, someone will follow it after me.

  

Forest for the Trees; or, an exercise in futility

Posted on by

Photo #596: Forest For The TreesLocation Taken: Mystery Cave/Forestville State Park, Minnesota
Time Taken: June 2010

You know, I think this is an excellent shot at showing this well-foliaged forest. I mean, you can barely tell what anything is at all!

There are some cases where you have excellent lighting and a clear shot of what you’re trying to photograph but the subject itself isn’t cooperating at all. Or worse, as in this case, is inherently difficult to photograph.

You know that saying, “can’t see the forest for the trees”? Aka can’t see the big picture because of the little details? Well, this is a good photo for showing why that happens.

It’s a picture of the forest, showing how the canopy and the underbrush are around the same color. There’s the lines of trees in the middle to help distinguish the two, but your eye keeps getting caught on small details, without managing to even make sense of those. Did you notice the small flowers in the bushes? Or that one larger bush right in front, which I think was what I was trying to make the focus of the photo? It just blends right in, doesn’t it?

Mind you, if this was a 3D image and not a 2D one, you’d spot that bush right off. And you’d really appreciate the way the trees go back into the distance before they get obscured by even more foliage. But it is 2D, and the forest becomes a blur of green leaves.

This, of course, triggers our brains into trying to make sense of what we’re looking at, so because looking at the whole thing doesn’t work, we start focusing on tiny details. And then completely lose track of the fact that it’s a forest. Which makes you want to try looking at the big picture again, which is still a blur of green, and the process repeats until your brain rebels and makes you stop looking at the dang thing.

Amazing how a photo with as little contrast as this has contains a lot of depth of thought, no?

  

Is there anything happier than a dog in snow?

Posted on by

Photo #594: Energy DogLocation Taken: Savage, Maryland
Time Taken: December 2009

Just look at all that potential energy in that pose! Once she unleashes that, that dog will go far!

And by far I mean straight into the snowbank. Where she shall snurfle around and find a ball and throw it into the air a few times just so she can catch it.

I know all this because I can see what will come! Well, that and this was kinda years ago and all that did happen and I was there taking photos and what not. But really, I can see into the future!!

Or something like that.