Guest Photo: Frost Oak

I've recently gotten back in touch with an old friend from college, and we've been renewing a conversation that was carried on not only in person, but in long letters we wrote to each other during the summers. I found some of those as I was cleaning out the attic in Vermont last summer, and re-reading them encouraged me to try to find him and reconnect. As he's discovered, I've left a fairly long trail of words and pictures of my own on this blog! He always liked being out in nature, and has been sending me some photographs from his daily walks - this was one from last week and I liked it so much I asked if I could post it here. Thanks, G.!

Comments

[Pohanginapete]

It's a beautiful photo — lovely colours and tones.

[Spongebelly]

You're welcome, Beth. And greetings to your friends and readers here. Those of you who have been coming here for a long time can perhaps imagine my joy in hearing from Beth again after some 30 years. Back in the days of longhand correspondence, the effort to maintain connections had became too much, as career and family took priority. So imagine the treat it has been, not only to have a gentle "hello" from an old friend, but to find this treasure of writing, going back years, from a familiar voice, now more polished and confident than ever, but with the same inquisitiveness and gentle respect that made us friends long ago.

[Beth]

Thanks, Pete, it's always good to see you here, and I'm glad you and Spongebelly have connected!

Yes, thanks to the internet we all have this strange opportunity to revisit our own past through re-meeting old friends. In my case, some of those reconnections - like this one - have been fortuitous and almost seamless. Some of the others have been pretty mystifying - one wonders how people could grow so far apart, to the point of wondering what the friendship was based on in the first place. With "Spongebelly" we seem to have picked up sort of where we left off; our conversation was always about the kinds of things I/we still write and think about here, just coming from a much younger point of view. He and I met in an advanced freshman math class, where he was brilliant and I was not; he went in the math/science direction and I went into the humanities. We shared a similar upstate New York background, but I think we were really drawn together by a general curiosity toward a wide collection of interests, a gentleness of spirit, enjoyment in cooking and making things, and lots and lots of reading. The years have given us both depth and experience, but the essential personalities, minds, and outlooks seem intact - something that is not always the case, by a long shot. Life can smooth us or erode us quite cruelly, partly depending on the nature and action of the abrasive materials, and partly depending on the nature of the substrate itself.

[Robb]

Kia ora Beth,
Isn't it great to reconnect with people. What a stunning photo, I love being able to get lost within such a tiny world.
Aroha,
Robb

[Mouse]

"Life can smooth us or erode us quite cruelly, partly depending on the nature and action of the abrasive materials, and partly depending on the nature of the substrate itself."

I love that
Yes, it's very true. I hope that I am becoming a smooth little pebble, one that glistens in the waves but is still shiny and bright when the storm tide arrives....

[Dick]

It's a beautiful photograph. I'm struck by the shape of the leaves. The cavities are much deeper than in British oaks. Is this a particular species?

[Beth]

Dick, these look like pin oak leaves to me, they're awfully deeply-cut to be red oak. Pin oaks are a popular landscaping tree for parks and campuses, but I think the species is native as well. Most of our native oaks in northern New England are either red oak or white oak, which have distinctive (and different) leaf shapes - the former pointy, the latter with rounded lobes. Are English oaks like either of those?

[Spongebelly]

A US Fish and Wildlife Habitat summary project has quite a detailed summary of this area and says "The Long Island Pine Barrens-Peconic River complex occurs on the Atlantic Coastal Plain in central Long Island at the junction of the north and south forks and at the head of the Peconic Bays... The dominant forest type, with greater than 60% canopy cover of trees, is the pitch pine-oak forest with varying proportions of pitch pine and one or more oak species (Quercus coccinea, Q. rubra, Q. alba, Q. velutina), and an understory dominated by scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia) and ericaceous (heath) shrubs."

These four listed oak species are commonly called scarlet, red, white and black. The particular leaves in my photo, I believe, are from Q. coccinea, a scarlet oak.

[brother printer cartridges]

The photo is awesome.The leaves are looking like artificial leaves.