Photo of the Day - September 17, 2007 - Looking Up Into a Shortleaf Pine, Fisher Park

Though I took this picture in Fisher Park, this shows well the way my world looked as I grew up in Columbia SC. As I have often said, I grew up looking at the Carolina blue sky (that is, when it wasn't a hazy grey summer sky) through the limbs of tall pine trees, mostly Loblolly, Short Leaf, and Long Leaf pines. I'm glad we have several good stands of "real" pines here, though not nearly as many as in the drier sandy soil of hot Columbia. It's hard for me to think of Scotch and Virginia Pines as "real" pines - they're kind of wimpy to me. Fisher Park has a lot of nice trees - it's our prettiest park I think.