There is not a tree I hate.
There are quite a few I am neutral about and many I really admire and look up to.
There are a handful I love.
I love oaks.
I grew up with the deciduous Eastern white and red oaks and came to love Yosemite’s Black Oaks, and California Live Oaks too.
But my favorite oak, a very old oak, is growing in a park with other oaks in Corvallis, Oregon. It is my model for the tree in this spread.
Her branches reached out horizontally, twisting and swathed in mosses and lichen.
She first appeared in Baby Bear Sees Blue, when the cub sees green.Now she is back in Baby Bear counts one, full of ripe acorns that are filling the coffers of two rambunctious squirrels.
I started my thinking with a close up view.
Then pulled the focus out and assumed a lower point of view.
Then I decided to pull out completely to show the ground beneath them AND the spreading oak.
If you look carefully you’ll see sign of a retreating squirrel.
Ashley Wolff 