Trees in two colors

I'm sitting here waiting for the chimney sweep to come and inspect our flue so that maybe we can light a warming fire tonight. It's bitter cold here and windy, desolate and bare really. All the greens and blues in grass and water are greyed out, and the wind has swept the world flat. I'm not a huge fan of this time of year, but the grey light of the short cold days does make for really good photographs of tree silhouettes.

For some reason I'm a little bit obsessed with the shapes of the trees, especially against a background of sky. It could be the elementary school art class where we were taught to draw nothing but (fairly realistic for an eight-year-old, I'll give the teacher that much) trees for weeks on end, but I think that there are few things more beautiful.

The two-color tree silhouette also inspired our Gocco-ed holiday card this year, a take on this photograph. I love how the red ink from the "peace" message sneaks up into the rest of the picture, more or less in certain prints -- it's the same way that I like to think of peace sneaking into my life, more or less on certain days.

Stay warm, friends.