I was thinking of the phrase "phoning it in" when I left my camera gear in the car to go check on the trail cameras, but I brought my smartphone just in case. "Phoning it in" means doing something with less care and effort that you might otherwise use. But I had an excuse other than laziness since I was planning to do some mushroom-hunting after checking on the trail cams. If I have my camera backpack on, I have nowhere to put any mushrooms I might find (for the table, that is).
As luck would have it, I came across the scene above and kinda wished I'd had my Nikon with me. The trees and rocks were showing off their full winter jackets of moss, and a universe of water droplets on the leaves in the trees above was sparkling in the morning sunshine. It almost took my breath away when I walked up on the scene, whose layered depths are definitely lost in translation to 2D.
I found this foil balloon in some nearby branches.
Too bad I couldn't find a better subject to include with the nice light striking the madrones.
The Mt. Tam folks are still busy chopping down Douglas fir trees along the edges of meadows. The oaks are left alone, but without a little judicious gardening, the firs would eventually crowd out the increasingly rare grasslands. There was a crew working out along Bolinas Ridge on Saturday, way north near the McKennan Trail but on the east-facing slope. It looks very different out there than when I last saw it, very much more open.
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