Natural beauties...........

I've found so many beautiful shapes and colors of things right here in my yard this winter; it makes me stop to think how much Mother Nature gives us for pleasure and creativity. The top photo is the stump of an old cedar tree we had to cut down because of ice storm damage done years ago, and it was dying............(and a friend needed some cedar fence posts!) And yes, it still smells wonderful like cedar chests or cedar closets! But look at the shape of the tree's outline................sort of like a flower. Or a leaf. Or a butterfly with a huge head!

And in this other close-up photo of the same cedar stump, you can see where little bugs lived and ate their way through, making interesting little tunnels as they went. I wonder where they went after the tree was cut down. Maybe they had already abandoned their little tunnel homes when the tree way dying. And I couldn't count the "age rings" on this tree like I can on a pine to tell how old it is. But I remember how big and tall it was for all the 30-odd years we've lived here, so I grieved for losing a pretty old cedar which had given the birds shelter from the hot sun or winter cold rains for so long. Not to mention the oxygen trees give us; or the carbon dioxide they absorb to clean our air. And the many Christmases that I snatch off a few soft cedar greens to decorate with, and that smell so great!

Can you tell I'm a "tree hugger" kind of person?! Heh, heh.........everybody please go plant a tree somewhere this year.........the environment and birds will thank you for many years to come.