I think the thing that I kept noticing yesterday was the greens. The trees came into leaf while I was gone and there are so many shades of exquisite green. The fluorescent lime green of new fir needles, the dark shiny green of old and then there is everything in between...
There is a particular kind of moss that grows where there is a seep of water coming out of a certain kind of rock. It is so brilliant that I suspect it might glow in the dark. Add in lichen greens, moss greens, and even the dull gloss of green rocks and you have the makings of a palette of incredible color green.
I found myself staring for a long time at one tree. It was a poplar (which you might know as cottonwood.) And I hesitate to talk about because it might be misconstrued as metaphor (so maybe it is) The tree was about eight inches butt diameter. It grew about twelve feet straight up and then took a sharp twist sideways and around and continued on up. That knee caught my attention. It looked almost as though it had wrapped around another tree for a while. The tree had kind of a hollow in the center and it made it look very unique. There was no sign of the missing tree though. I would have expected there to be a stump or something to mark its presence. That left disease or wind damage. Sometimes that happens. A branch growing at the level of the damage assumes the role of new trunk. Gradually straightening to take over its new role. I would speculate that another tree from further away fell across this one, knocking the top off and then a branch from this one caught the fallen tree for a while and grew around it as it was preparing to take on the trunk role causing the strange curl and the hollow. Iit was fun to speculate about all the options. The fact is that it was just a very unusual site. enjoying the curves and graceful squat beauty of the tree was in no detracted from by the idle speculation. The curiosity about why forced me to observe more closely than I would otherwise have done.