Those of you who’ve been following my weekly hikes at Busy
Being Born couldn’t have helped wondering about what it was with me and
all the dead trees. Well, I just like the looks of them. The other day my wife
gave me an interesting assignment: pick out my six favorite dead-tree pictures
so she can have them printed in black and white for a wall-decoration scheme
she’s working on.

So I threaded through my archives and winnowed my greatest-hits collection
down to about 50; from there we boiled it down to these six, posted in the order
they were taken.

Acorn woodpecker habitat, Joseph D. Grant County Park, November 2004. (Originally
posted here.)

Gnarled tree trunk, Sunol Regional Wilderness, October 2005. (Originally posted
here.)

Near Mount Diablo summit, December 2005. (Originally posted here.)

Pinnacles National Monument, March 2006. (Originally posted here.)

Near the Tafoni Monolith, El Corte de Madera Open Space Preserve, May 2006.
(Originally posted here.)

Henry Coe State Park, June 2006. (Originally posted here.)

I figure if you take 6,000 pictures in two years you’re bound to have half-dozen
good ones.