ENTS,
 
Today I took off from work for a church photography expedition. I wanted to take care of a bunch of churches that will be at least partially obscured by trees very soon, once the trees leaf out. I arranged it with the boss at work last week, so that when a sunny day was forecast for the next day, I would take that day off. Today was supposed to be sunny. The image on the forecast on my computer for today was of a sun with no clouds at all. When I'm going to be taking church pictures, that's the forecast I want. I didn't want to take a chance on whether I would get a day like that on my only real day off, Saturday. So that's why I took off from work. So I left work at around 8 am, and got to my first church a little too early, and had to kill some time. Also the sky was not perfect, as all the online forecasts had led me to believe. Because of this, many of my church pictures are not as pretty as I'd like them to be.
 
One church I wanted to do was the Methodist church in Fordville (in Fairfield Township, Cumberland County). I was there too early and the sun was in the wrong place, to I went down to Gouldtown, which is nearby in the same township. In the Gouldtown cemetery I found some large Eastern Red Cedars. I measured the largest one, and the CBH was 10' 5".
 
To kill more time I went down to the old Presbyterian cemetery outside Fairton, in the same township. I already knew there was a large, forest-grown White Oak behind the old Presbyterian cemetery. So I went there and measured the CBH, which turned out to be 12' 9". This tree is a real beauty. The old Presbyterian cemetery is the site of the church's first church building. The congregation was started in 1680. The cemetery is all woods now, with some forest-grown Eastern Red Cedars in it. The woods behind the cemetery, where the White Oak is, is older than the cemetery itself though.
 
Also, while passing through Fairton I saw two Bald Cypresses growing at the edge of a creek ( the Cohansey River, I think). I found a place to park, and walked over to them to investigate. There were only two, and they weren't very big, but they were cool. There were lots of little knees around them too.
 
Later on I went to Greenwich (sounds like Green-witch), in Greenwich Township, Cumberland County. Greenwich is one of the best preserved 18th century villages in the state. No through roads go through it, so you have to go out of your way in order to go there. I like that. Behind the 1771 Friends meeting house there is a row of 5 very large Buttonwoods (Sycamore). I noticed that one of them was enormous so I got out my tape and found that the CBH was 15' 8". Then I realized that another one was actually bigger still, so I measured it and found the CBH to be 16' 3". These trees are amazing. There are more Buttonwoods scattered around the village too, though I'm not sure if there are any that are so big.
 
With all the church photos I took, these tree photos were a big bonus. They made me very happy, though I'm very frustrated with my truck, because of the rear main seal leak and the steering box leak.

Anyway, I need to get the photos together for you. I've been promising photos of lichen and other things. I need to do that.
Barry