Elm Tree in the Snow

I am a lover of trees.

There, I have said it. It was something you guessed by now, I'm sure, given how many of my photos on this blog feature trees. But I just felt like stating the obvious.

Yes, I love trees, and there are certain trees that are my favorites. I seek them out at all times of the year. I photograph them in the first light of dawn, at noon time, in the long shadows of evening, and under moonlit skies.

This is one of my favorite trees. It is the elm tree that abuts the left edge of Old Main, on the Penn State University Park campus. (Yes, we have lots of campuses. I work at the one smack-dab in the center of the state.)

There used to be TWO elm trees, one on either side of Old Main. This is the one that is left. When there were two, they provided every photo of Old Main with a nice, symmetrical frame. But no more . . .

The other tree was diseased and had to come down a few years ago. This has, alas, been the fate of too many of our beautiful elms on campus. In looking at other photos I took of Old Main, I note that all of the lovely elms that used to be right behind Old Main (including this one) are gone now too.

It is a big loss, the loss of a tree. A heartache, really. For trees are precious to us all; to people who enjoy their shade, to the creatures who make their homes in them, to the lovers of beauty who simply adore looking at them. It can take a lifetime to grow a tree as big as this one. (For the record, this one and its fellow bookend to Old Main were planted in the 1930s.)

On this day, the weather forecast was calling for a quick winter storm system to move through during the afternoon. I pay especially close attention to the online weather radar maps in winter, and I watched as the blue (snow) began to move into our area.

As I went out to catch my bus late in the afternoon, it was not precipitating yet, and I thought, "Great, a few minutes for pictures, without having to fight to protect the camera." But then, as I stood there, I caught the first few flakes; they were more like snow buds, really.

And within minutes, it was really pelting it down, as the snow buds turned into an actual mini snowstorm. By the time it was done, it had left us with another few inches. It slowed down and almost stopped within an hour or so, but then picked up off and on through the night. 

So at the time I took this picture, it was actively snowing. People had the hoods up on their coats and were hunkered down, bent into the wind. Me, I was juggling an umbrella, a daysack, a camera bag, and a camera; like always, it seems. (Why can I never learn to "travel light"? I guess it's just not part of who I am.)

Those are all facts, so far: a bit of history about the trees, what the weather did, how it was to be here on this day. Now let me add this, which is to say, a bit of my personal philosophy about trees.

I love trees at all times of year, and in fact, there is much to say about our autumns here, and how fantastic the trees are then, all covered in brightly colored leaves. For lovers of trees, autumn is the biggest, best tree-party of the year. I get giddy in the fall; I can't help myself. In autumn, we become chasers of foliage, we lovers of trees.

And I can show you this tree in most of those seasons: how beautiful it it is in springtime, when the leaves are fresh and green; how lovely it is even on a damp and drippy October morning, when night's candles are not yet burnt out.

But if you LOVE a tree, to really get to KNOW a tree, you must strip it down to the bare essence of what it is. And then you can say - AH, I loved that tree in summer, and I thought I knew it then. But now I see its structure; I know who it is beneath all of those fancy clothes. I know it all the way down to its bones; and I love it still.

I love a winter tree, in some ways almost best of all. I love the spareness of it. I love its simplicity. It gets down to the very essence of tree-ness: these amazing shapes, these bare, rattling bones against the snow.

Oh yes, I am a lover of trees.

The song to accompany this photo is one I just stumbled across, and it features some lovely vocal harmonies by three girls who are sisters, and members of an acoustic folk rock trio. The tune is The Staves, with Winter Trees.