This was taken in late September of 2008, on a beautiful autumn afternoon. I have another photograph of this particular tree mounted above my desk. I love trees. I wish they could talk, that we could hear the stories of the past they could tell us, with many of them living for centuries, and others, such as the Fortingall Yew in the UK having their lifespans measured in millenia which seems both awe inspiring and a little insane.

If this particular tree could talk, it would be able to tell you about a time not so long ago as it knows time, that a young man got down on one knee in front of it, in the cold and the rain, and asked a young woman to marry him. And it would tell you that she said yes. That young man is a little older now, but he still remembers that tree fondly.