|
|||||
|
Walking Among Lodgepoles |
|||||
|
This is a beautifully wild place. |
|||||
|
The dense forest is largely of lodgepole pine with a scattering of other species. |
|||||
|
At present the forest is dying. An infestation of pine bark beetle is killing the lodgepoles. The spruce seem to be unaffected. Only a deeply cold winter with little snow will slow the progress and save much of the forest we see there. |
|||||
| This then is a painting based upon mixed emotions. While I love the lodgepole forest nature must run its own course. In time the spruce and new lodgepole seedlings will repopulate the wilderness. It will take a long time as the tree ring count on a few of the larger pines that have been cut reaches near 200 years. I have a section cut from a stump on which I marked the year 1808 when my ancestors settled in East Tennessee as pioneers. That tree was only 68 years old when Crazy Horse defeated Custer at the Little Big Horn. | |||||
