Sunday November 27, 2022; 7:17 PM EST
- I'm not sure the landscape in Indiana and Illinois is more beautiful at other times of the year than it was today. Well, maybe spring, maybe. So many shades of color, in a wintery range of tones. Now that the leaves are off of most of the trees, the branches so distinctive for each species. Some fine, some more elbows and knees going up. Some fanning, some verticals and near-verticals, some with horizontals off the main trunk. Some a wet matte black in color, others brown shading to a wintery red, others brown shading to tan and even yellow out toward the slender ends. Soils exposed, damp and dark, rough-turned or smooth, stubbled with corn or green-whiskered with winter wheat or entirely bare. Bushes in clumps or tilting, trees now exposing some old injury, some gap, or still exhibiting the characteristic symmetry of the particular species. Hillsides brown-red in the underbrush and stark black in the upright trunks. Grassy sidings green fading to yellow and a dry tan. The occasional very large hawk on a limb not far from the country road, watching. Deer crossing up ahead, and by the time the car reaches the spot they are entirely invisible against the underbrush in the near part of the woods. Magical feeling of the landscape alive even though winter would seem to say otherwise. Part of the color at the end of small branches being the buds already starting to bulk up for spring, under the tiny, hard outer folds that protect them. Creeks and rivers always moving roughly southward. Against all odds, despite our best efforts to kill most of it off, alive and resilient and alive.#