Tree - Song ? Treason ? Tree Son ? Reason ?

I will try to keep a long story short here. Last Saturday I had planned a photo shoot with the owner of a bright yellow 1970's Volkswagen Beetle, we were going to come to this spot on a dirt road through a vast field of colza (rape seed?), where I wanted to try a few pictures of the bright yellow Beetle against the backdrop of the brilliant yellow field of flowers, and be able to make a few remarks about certain creatures in nature being able to change colors and camouflage themselves for survival purposes. But it was not to be, the Beetle owner backed out, literally, half an hour before we were to start. Tough luck.
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So I decided to take a little stroll there, seeing as I had nothing better to do all of a sudden, and I headed up this track through the heavenly yellow, and into the woods beyond. And it was there in the woods that I stumbled on a few trees which I mentioned to Laurie over at Creating Pictures that I would post soon. . . In any case, regardless of being stood up for the VW shots, it was a lovely afternoon for a stroll in the woods. . .
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Those dazzling yellow fields of rape seed are really something this time of year in France. . .
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I had hardly gotten into the woods before I came face to face with this message wishing me "Bonne Chance" or "Good Luck". . . It was disappointing to see people had spray painted graffiti on the tree trunks here in these off the beaten track woods . . .
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And the "Good Luck" trees were not the only ones that had been decorated by dim witted dolts bearing spray paint . . . I kept on walking . . .
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A bit further on I came to an arch in magical green light . . .
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And near the arch above there was a bright red sign on a tree trunk warning "Chasse au Grand Gibier - Danger", or "Big Game Hunting in Progress - Beware". Now I don't know what that sign really meant, because the biggest game in these parts is maybe a deer or a wild boar. . . when I think of "Big Game" I tend to think of elephants, rhinoceri, or water buffalo. . . I was expecting to see a herd of wildebeest behind the next tree.
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But saving the best for last, this is the photo I really wanted to share . . . deep in that stretch of woods there was a tree on which someone had nailed a metal sign long ago, and the tree had clearly decided to devour the offending bit of metal. . . I cautiously gave that tree a wide berth, lest it should think that I looked tasty too, and decide to nibble on one of the race of spray painting lunatics as dessert after finishing off the hunting sign . . . One never knows what one may find when venturing into a strange forest. And I saw not a single squirrel. . . (which is not in any way, shape, or form supposed to indicate that you should at the earliest opportunity go look at the blog of the Realm of the Lone Grey Squirrel . . . no, I did not say that at all . . . !)
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Bent Tree Branch . . .

Anyone out there who may have been familiar with Swarthmore, Pennsylvania a few years back will probably remember this unforgettable tree with the incredibly bent gravity defying branch overhanging Crum Creek. . .

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Death Don't Have No Mercy . . .

This grinning death's head which may appeal to any Grateful Dead fans in the audience is a detail from a rather extraordinary sculpted tree, of which nearly the entire surface of the trunk and the larger branches has been carved into an incredible collection of artwork. Stumbled on this fine example of outsider art in a village near an exit off the A75 highway between Milau and Clermont Ferrand when driving back from Nimes a couple of summers ago. . . am wondering why one eye socket is hollow while the other has an eye . . .
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Breathing Tree

This photo goes back quite a few years, back around 1984 on a trip to England to see if Orwell's prophecies were coming true, I photographed this tree on a foggy morning in Surrey not far from Windsor Castle. As up to here this blog has been displaying a primarily positive point of view, thought I'd slip in a negative viewpoint for balance. Incredible how the trunk and branch structure of some trees mimics closely the paths of air passages in our lungs (or is it the other way round?)

Up A Tree

When life starts looking ugly, I head for the woods; which are abundant in my neck of the woods, as it were. Is that the light at the end of the tunnel down there in the distance? Or the tunnel at the end of the light? Or the headlight of an on-coming train?

In any case, walking in the woods is good for the soul, I can't imagine not having woods to explore. Some of my earliest memories are from escapades in the woods. Near my childhood home there was a stretch of woods with a creek running through it, we spent countless hours and days in there, in our secret world.

And I've sometimes been guilty of barking up trees...

This is another view barking up a tree, whether the wrong one, or the right one, I don't know...

Point of View

I could never decide whether I liked this image better upside down or right-side up, it doesn't really matter. If I'd been hanging upside down from a tree branch, this is the scene you would have seen. The fact that light bounces off water with startling clarity never ceases to amaze me. Photo was taken along a quiet stretch of Nacote Creek, near Port Republic, New Jersey. A backwater town if there ever was one.

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