Forest graveyard

It has been a fairly mundane housework day today and I hoped that by postponing my walk until the afternoon the light might have improved. It was not to be, again. However we set off on our usual route only to discover that the forestry work had gone on apace in the few days since I had last walked where the harvesting is taking place. Huge tracts of previously dense pine forest have been laid bare and while most of the stripped tree trunks have been loaded up and removed, some lay abandoned amongst the debris of broken branches and wounded tree stumps. Bizarrely some isolated trees remain standing, including this one with only half its branches. Whether the branches on the other side have been removed or whether they had simply not grown due to the proximity of its recent neighbours i will never know. New life, however, breathes afresh amongst this manmade devastation as a bright green fern holds up its head, enjoying the light and freshness of the air about it and no doubt it will very shortly start to take hold. The balance of Nature asserts itself once more.