Picture of the week

Tangled Past

The remains of an old oak still standing.  To me, these majestic trees still imbue beauty even after they have died.  It is also facinating to think of what history has transpired during the lifecycle of a tree like this.  To make this point, the first photograph below was taken not far from this tree, and are the remains of an old gold dredging barge, now high and dry above the nearby Cosumnes River.  The use of dredges like this stopped sometime in the 1950's, while this tree was probably in its prime.  Since then, the landscape has changed with rivers like the Cosumnes flowing a lot lower than earlier times before much water was diverted for agriculture and development as the population for California has grown.

Additional pictures were taken in various oak studded foothills either southeast of Sacramento, or as part of the Coastal foothills in the Bear Valley region.  Now with the use of my drone I am able to capture other more unique images and from locations not so easily accessible, and has become a more regular tool of my camera kit.