Wednesday, March 29, 2006

artifact



The smell of acrid smoke rises as my shoes crunch over the burned grasses at Peck Farm Park. A sinuous swath of the prairie has recently been set afire, not in a destructive action but to clear the way for new growth. The blackened burned out field will soon be bright green with new growth.

The fire moved fast and hot, so fast in fact that an old log was barely singed and certainly never caught fire. The strange surface of the wood, now devoid of bark, makes a beautiful pattern against the charcoal blackness.

5 comments:

srp said...

This log looks as if it has been twisted by something and yet continued to live for quite a while. Ideas?

Anonymous said...

I just found your blog on a double hop from Lifescapes via Roundrock Journal. Impresive pictures and just the kind I really enjoy. Comes from growing up on a very small farm in the middle of the Superior National Forest in NE Minnesota. And then marrying a transplanted Iowan. Lots of trees and farms in our backgrounds.

When I can buy out some time I'll be reading your archives, which I sampled briefly today. Lovely.

Thanks so much for your words and pictures which carry me back to all my roots.

Anonymous said...

awesome photo.

Suzanne said...

I'm going to go back to the field and look at this log again, because indeed it does seem to have some interesting twists going on.

Tim Rice said...

Neat log. I love natural designs one can find in nature.