Most mornings, when I wake in the winter season, my apartment complex is surrounded with a gray fog of varying densities. With the fog one notices the outlines of trees with their skeleton branches that seem to be reaching out for one another presenting a mystical look for viewers like me. The dark branches are leafless at this time of year, Most of the trees that I view from my apartment are Big Leaf Maple -- a very common tree in Norhtwest Oregon.
By noon usually the fog has cleared but not always. Sometimes it hangs around all day. On those days my favorite thing to do is to curl up inside and read and read and read. Above are the skeleton looking branches, again, of another Big Leaf. Behind is a large Douglas Fir that even though it is a beautiful green seems gray from the fog. Everything seems enclosed like you are living in a small world.
References:
Gathering Moss -- A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest by Mark Turner and Ellen Huhlm


