Sunlight shines
on evergreens browning. River
rushes on below.
This entry for the Between photo challenge is in honor of my husband’s favorite tree, the eastern hemlock, which is suffering widespread death in the Appalachians due to an exotic insect, the Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA). Where 20 years ago we ran our hands over hemlocks’ feathery branches on every Appalachian hike, all the hemlocks we see now are brittle and brown, denuded of their soft needles, or if they do still have leaves, they are encrusted with the egg sacs of the insects that are killing them (the skeletal trees in the foreground of the picture are hemlocks). If you have hemlocks on your property, please see this Nature Conservancy article for information on how to treat the infestation.
Butterfly Mind 
We have similar problems here in British Columbia woth the spruce budworm and the pine beetle. Real indicators of climate change because winters are milder here. it was was 65 degrees for a few day this january, whereas previous decades it would be more like 30 0r 40 degrees, Ironic, after this past winter of harsh weather down in your neck of the woods.
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What a beautiful photo. I hope something can be done to save them before it’s too late.
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I miss Virginia’s mountains…my favorite in the world. I remember years ago, maybe around 1999, when a severe hail storm tore apart the Shenandoah Mountains. It looked naked. Hope those bugs back off!
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