A Tangle of Bright Moments: Make Your Own Space

There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there’s light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space … then there’s a race — between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space.” — Terry Pratchett, Small Gods (Discworld series, 1992)

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A local snowshoe walk (central New Hampshire) on a day in mid-January 2019 that reached 19F for a high, from a low of -11F.

treesbentsunlightsnowKCCExtNLNH17Jan2019
weak winter sun through trees
hemlocktreeneedlestrianglethreestemssnowcontrastKCCExtNLNH17Jan2019
hemlock tree needles in snow
palegreenlichencellbordertreetrunkKCCExtNLNH17Jan2019
maybe maple-dust lichen (Lecanora thysanophora) , with those white margins?
redcrabapplesclosesnowsunKCCTrailNLNH17Jan2019
red crabapples
yellowbirchtreebarkglowingsnowKCCExtNLNH17Jan2019
yellow birch tree trunk
snowstrippedwhitebirchbarkbrownunderKCCExtNLNH17Jan2019
white birch tree trunk partially stripped of bark
speckledstoneeggtreetrunksnowKCCExtNLNH17Jan2019
speckled stone like an egg nestled at base of tree trunk

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Featured image: fallen hemlock tree bough
This is one in a series of posts revisiting field trips taken from January to June 2019, as described here.

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