Everything was limned in white. I love when it coats the branches like that. Both these pictures were up back on the hill behind my house. You can see far into the woods at this time of year, but in the midst of summer, the underbrush and trees leaf out and block all view.
Doesn't it look like the trees exhaled those clouds? In a way they did, the warm moisture rising off the land creates clouds.
I love how the blue of the sky and the white tipped branches work together. I guess I will always have a poet's soul and a painter's eye for beauty.
Below is my Shiro plum, which in spring was a cloud of tiny white blossoms. With the snow, it blooms again.
I love sky shots and we get some spectacular ones here. Many of the oak trees in my yard are close to 100' tall. The hill behind the house gives a sense of height to even the shorter trees. One thing I like about the bare branches of winter is that you can see all the intricate lacy details.
Even at ground level there is a lot to see. Every little fallen twig and boulder top has a snowy flocking. I guess some folks would find this a bit stark, but I like seeing the bones of the land. I am always grateful to live where there are four distinct seasons. The landscape is an ever-changing palette of hues.
An old cedar wren house hung in the east side yard looks fresh and interesting with a coating of new snow. I like the waviness of the branch over it, something you might not have noticed without the snowy highlighting. I believe chickadees last inhabited that house. I put that house up where my mother could sit in her window rocker and watch the birds go back and forth, feeding and caring for their young. We have birdfeeders all over too, for the same reason. It is good to recall that there is life around us that will go on, even when we think things are out of control, as they often are in our everyday human world.
The mail and paper boxes are sort of a declaration to the rest of the world that this piece of nature is being inhabited by us. Notice the road is well sanded and salted. It is early in the winter, and the budget is still intact. This snow was no match for the plows, and it was warm enough for the road crew to scrape it off the pavement. This is the northeast corner of the property, and the state forest starts a few steps from the boxes.
Part of the woodpile, covered in snow. Kind of reminds me of cakes or nut breads with sifted confectioners sugar. Those are forsythia bushes behind the wood, we have a line of them in front of the house, in an untidy hedge between us and the road. My house sits very close to the road. This is shot from the front step looking roughly northwest.
One of several feeding stations, this is the one in front of the house. We really have no front yard to speak of, just a couple of huge trees and an uneven strip of land. You can't see them in this picture but there are birds in the bushes chirping and waiting for me to leave so they can feed. The feeder needs refilling too.
That is Bob and Shelly's house, across the road. They have been here longer than anyone else in this area, having lived in that house since 1963. Their house was built by the son of the people who built the original one we bought, and it is designed exactly the same way, and is still only the four rooms and bath. It's cozy, and plenty large enough when you add in the garage, carport, and outbuildings. The long red bow on the wreath caught my camera's eye. In the summer you can't see much of their house. Having that kind of openess at this time of year helps you feel less closed in when the winds howl and bite.
The next three pictures are closeups of dark-eyed juncos, or what we like to call 'snowbirds'. Here they show up in the late fall and stay until mid spring before migrating north. They hang out all over the yard, and spend plenty of time investigating twiggy underbrush, untidy gardens, and the base of my feeders, where plenty of seed drops. If you go up into the woods, you can hear them rustling through the branches of the low pines, trilling back and forth to one another.
It's cold sitting there in the forsythia, and I bet he or she wishes I would move along so there will be time to feed. I like these shots because you can really see how the snow has clung to the branches.
Hey lady, go inside and have some hot cocoa, and leave us to our foraging!
I love my digital camera, it has an awesome zoom that allows me to get up close and personal with the animals and scenery around me. All of these shots were taken from either my front or back step. You don't have to go far to see something interesting or amazing here. You just need the open eyes to recognize it, and the open heart to embrace and tell the story.
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