What the wind did

As you may remember, last Wednesday I tried my hand at some prose, and my subject matter was the wind. That piece was inspired, in part, by a large tree that came crashing down on our own property. Well, part of a tree anyway.

As I made my way up the driveway in the dark a week ago, I was forced to stop several times so I could get out and remove large limbs from my path. As I got to the bend in the driveway, I was already wondering about the fate of an Aspen tree that is uphill from our driving path. It has been doing "the lean" for a number of months, and I always imagined that it would be strong winds that would take it down.

The tree fell victim to the winds, as I feared it would. This is pretty much exactly where it landed, right next to the driveway. How courteous of it! Aside from me needing to break off a few stray branches, there was no need to move it in order to proceed down the driveway to the house.


A close-up of the point of fracture
In the dark of night of course I wasn't able to see up into the woods to observe what was left of the tree, but judging by what was on the ground, I figured most of it had been taken down. I mean, this is probably a 15-foot section of tree laying on the ground here.

It wasn't until several days later that I was able to get a good look at what still remained standing.

In the photo at left you can kind of get a sense of "the lean" to this tree that I mentioned earlier. The photo at right attempts to show how much tree is still standing. I would say there's probably 30 feet of trunk still reaching toward the sky. If I would have paid more attention to where the limbs were in relation to the point of the break, I could have easily surmised that only the top portion of the tree came down, because Aspen trees only have branches way up top.

The tree top continues to line the driveway. I'm using it as an excuse to play with the timber tools (i.e. chainsaw!), but I haven't had enough daylight hours with good clear weather to be able to cut it up just yet. Hopefully this weekend, though.

Once I started taking pictures, it didn't take me long to become mesmerized by all the beautiful colors and textures and shapes going on within this tree.

I snagged a chunk of this beautiful bark to add to my growing collection of outdoor items that have become indoor specimens. For further photographic study, you know.

Nature's artistry never ceases to amaze me.

P.S. All of these photos were taken with my new Nikon Coolpix camera. I'm pretty pleased with the results.