Just an old stump.

[Jeff]

But it's a pretty old stump wouldn't you say?



 

[Paul_H]

Yes,it is quite old  :P

[Jeff]

Not that old. ;)

[Autocar]

Yep it sure is, you can tell Jeff your a woods man you don't miss a thing  ;) I had a old timber buyer tell me years ago that sometimes you have to slow down and look at the beauty off those long logs and remember how long it took to grow rather then just dollar sign on what there worth.

[Jeff]

Its been awhile since I referenced this, but its a good read Autocar. Your post reminded me of it. From one of my favorite books in my bookcase.

I wanted to share a passage from a book written early in the last century. If you are interested in forestry, or just trees in general, Horace Kephart reads almost like poetry. This is from his 1917 "Camping and Woodcraft"

SAMENESS OF THE FOREST. --
All dense woods look much alike.  Trees of most species grow very tall in a forest that has never been cut over, their trunks being commonly straight and slender, with no branches within, say, forty feet of the ground. 

This is because they cannot live without sunlight for their leaves, and they can only reach sunlight by growing tall like their neighbors that crowd around them.  As the young tree shoots upward, its lower limbs atrophy and drop off. 

To some extent the characteristic markings of the trunk that distinguish the different species when they grow in the open, and to a greater extent their characteristic habits of branching, are neutralized when they grow in dense forest.

Consequently a man who can readily tell one species from another, in open country, by their bark and branching habits, may be puzzled to distinguish them in aboriginal forest.

Moreover, the lichens and mosses that cover the boles of trees, in the deep shade of a primitive wood, give them a sameness of aspect, so that there is some excuse for the novice who says that "all trees look alike" to him.


    The knowledge of trees that can be gained, first from books and secondly from studies of trees themselves in city parks or in country wood lots, must be supplemented by considerable experience in the real wilderness before one can say with confidence, by merely glancing at the bark, "that is a soft maple, and the other is a sugar-tree."  And yet, I do not know any study that, in the long run, would be more serviceable to the amateur woodsman than to get a good manual of American trees and then go about identifying the species in his neighborhood.

Having gained some facility in this, then let him turn to studying peculiarities of individual growth.  Such self-training, which can be carried out almost anywhere, will make him observant of a thousand and one little marks and characteristics that are sign-boards and street-numbers in the wilds.
   
WHAT TO NOTICE.--
After a novice has had some preliminary training of the kind I have indicated, so that all things in the woods no longer look alike to him, he will meet another difficulty.  His memory will be swamped!

It is utterly impossible for any man, whether he be red, white, black, or yellow, to store up his mind all the woodland marks and signs that one can see in a mile's tramp, to say nothing of the infinite diversity that he encounters in a long journey.

Now, here is just where a skilled woodcraftsman has an enormous advantage over any and all amateurs.  He knows what is common, and pays no attention to it; he knows what is uncommon, it catches his eye at once, and it interests him, so that he need make no effort to remember the thing.

This disregard for the common eliminates at once three fourths, yes, nine-tenths, of the trees, plants, rocks, etc., from his consideration; it relieves his memory of just that much burden.  He will pass a hundred birch trees without a second glance, until his eye is riveted by a curly birch.  Why riveted? Because curly birch is valuable.  In the bottom lands he will scarcely see a sour gun, or a hundred of them; but let him come across one such tree on top of the ridge, and he will wonder how it chanced to stray so far from home. 

And so on, through all categories of woodland features.  A woodsman notices such things as infallibly, and with as little conscious effort, as a woman notices the crumbs and lint on her neighbor's carpet.

[Mooseherder]

The coral reef stump.

[clww]

That's what came to my mind, too.

[Magicman]

Nature decorated that stump to celebrate Fall coming.   

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

That's a picture that needs to be on the cover of a Magazine. Or framed and hung in a home. 

[Shotgun]

Brownie, you're trying to stay out of the woodshed for your butt log picture.  You're so transparent.   :D

Norm

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Brownie, you're trying to stay out of the woodshed for your butt log picture.  You're so transparent.   :D

Norm

Come on Norm.....it is a good pic. This is not the first pic Jeff's put on here good enough for framing.
My compliment and my butt log was just a coincidence.  ;D

[Texas Ranger]

The artists eye caught a goodun on this one.

[grweldon]

What I'm wondering is... are any of those edible?  Yeah, I know, heading in the food direction again...

[mesquite buckeye]

At least 3 different types of  fungi are apparent. Very cool, Jeff. ;D 8) 8) 8)

I will be looking at stumps myself in 2 wks.