Cone Flowers and Snow Drops--Winter Version

It was just one of those winter days...where the snow turned everything into a thing of beauty.

Snow Glitter

Fluffy snow sparkles in the gravel driveway. 

Leaf Patterns in Frost

The thermometer dropped into the single digits last night and we woke up in the morning to some pretty  frost patterns on the kitchen window. 

Silver and Gold

The day started with silver frost on the windshield...

...and ended with a golden sunset reflected in the little pond across the road from us. 

Oddly Left Behind

The bitter north winds of winter

bring the icy fingered

 frost faeries out to play

silvery laughter sparkles in the snow

on the sharp razor-fine line

 between the real and imagined

 just a blink and they are gone--

but--hush! in the snow

(oddly) left behind is a  fairy scarf

thrown lightly over a fraying twig

spun delicately of innocence

 woven with the shimmer of snowflakes

 bound together with a confounding dose

of endless imagination and mystery. 

 Linked to Real Toads--where the prompt today is a word list. Photo taken on a hike along a nature trail yesterday. 

First Snowfall

Thin beauty--

 first snowfall

coats icy fear

reminds of mortality

and also that 

angels are near.  

Earth and Sky

Winter is the time of silver days...

...when earth and sky are one.

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

Winter Aster

Purple and Orange

Since our skies have been rather undramatic lately, I thought I would dig into my archives for a brighter skywatch photo. This is a sunset from February, 2011.

Linked to skywatch friday.

February Rain

Winter Sketch

Stinging snow pellets

bite through gray air

erasing color

 from landscape and sky

Sagging lines

stretch across fields

wooden supports leaning

tired and cold.

Eyes squinting though the snow

Head down against the wind

hands in pockets

I hurry towards warmth

Nothing of beauty here,

to catch the eye

In this treeless land

of lifeless cornfields

 and leaning telephone poles.

Or is there?

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

(Inspired in part by Stewart's skywatch post last Friday over at Paying Ready Attention...finding beauty in  the common everyday skies. Our skies the past several days have for the most part been pretty colorless--yet, even then there is a certain stark beauty to be found.)

50 Miles From Home

I don't mind a lot of driving when the scenery looks like this.

Paperwhites

I'm trying something a little different with my paperwhites this winter. I bought a dozen bulbs a few weeks and am forcing them in a  bowl with water and rocks--as I always do. This year, though, instead of putting all the bulbs in the bowl at the same time, I am staggering them. The first ones bloomed a couple of days ago, others are budding out,and the last few bulbs just got tucked in among the rocks yesterday. My goal is to extend the bloom without having to have multiple containers.  I will see how the experiment goes in the long run, but so far, so good.

Linked to Macro Monday,

Graveyard Sun and Shadows

The little cemetery quarter of a mile down the road from us.

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

Hocking Hills State Park, Part II: Ash Cave

Ash cave is the largest recess cave in Ohio. The horseshoe shaped recess cave is 700 feet long, 100 feet deep, and 90 feet high. The cave is named after the large piles of ashes left behind by the Native Americans, who used the large rock shelter for a meeting place and a resting place.

Later, the first European settlers used the cave as a place to hold church services as they were building their first church.

Today the cave can be reserved for weddings , and the park occasionally holds outdoor events here.

It is the most easily accessed of all the caves and waterfalls in Hocking Hills with a handicap accessible 1/4 mile paved trail in the gorge leading up to the waterfall. There is also a rim trail that is slightly more rugged--at least in the winter when some of the steps are covered with ice!

At 90 feet high, the waterfall that plunges over rim of the cave is the tallest waterfall in Hocking Hills.

Two views of the stream below the falls--in some parts it winds slowly through the hemlock forest...

...and in other places it turns into miniature waterfalls that cascade down the rocky stream bed.

From what I have read,  if you want to see a lot of water, the best time to visit the cave is in April and May. Some summers the stream dries up completely. And I am told that if the winter is especially cold, the waterfall has been know to freeze completely from top to bottom.

Next Hocking Hills post (coming up when I get the photos sorted out for it!) will take you up the road to Rock Bridge and waterfall.

Linked to Watery Wednesday.

Winter Robin's Nest....

...bringing memories of spring and warmer days..

Tomorrow evening watch for a post with photos of Ash Cave and waterfall in Hocking Hills State Park.

Ice Swirls

I didn't take many macro photos on our recent trip to Hocking Hills state park in Ohio, but did get some of these fine threads of ice that were coiled here and there on the ground for no apparent reason.  These ice formations were independant of any visible water and were quite small, usually only an inch or so across. I have never come across anything quite like them before.

Update: One of my readers suggested that these ice formations may be frost flowers. They may be, but I am not familiar enough with frost flowers to tell for sure. I'm adding the photo below showing one of the formations as whole.

Linked to Macro Monday.

Christmas, Remembered

I took down the Christmas tree yesterday and instead of tossing the rose hips and fox tail grass that decorated it, I made them into this wreath along with a few of the salted pine cones and some dried tansy.

The result is a wreath that, at least to me, looks more wintry than Christmas and so I can hang it on the living room wall until it is time to switch it out for something that says spring instead of winter.

Linked to Macro Monday.

Greeting the New Year

I got up this morning hoping to greet the first sunrise of the new year. But nature had other plans and I was met with a cold drizzling rain. I went for a walk anyway. On a whim I decided to walk down a road that I haven't been on before, and discovered that is is more picturesque than my regular route with a small abandoned cemetery by the side of the road, several old barns, two small streams, and  a farm that still has cows in the pasture.

And the nice part is that the road loops back around onto the road the we live on.

Two different views of one of the old barns.

I don't have many goals for the new year beyond surviving the learning curve of my new job. If I can get through the winter with finishing my charting on time and not accidentally driving off a bridge on my way home in the dark and sleeting rain,  occasionally cooking real food and vacuuming the house, I will call it good.   But if there is one this I'd like to work on a bit this year, it is to be slightly more adventurous. Even if it as simple as taking a different road on my walk.

I am quite shy and not an adventurous person by nature and am realizing that because of that  life can pass me by. I would hate to come to the end of my life and all I have to show for it is that I went to work each day and did a bit of house work.

What about you? Any goals for 2012?

Linked to Homestead Revival's barn hop.

Last Sky of 2011

The evening sky is reflected in the tiny pond across the road from us. This little pond is usually hidden from sight by tall weeds. This evening I caught a glimpse of the sky reflected in the water, so fought my way through the weeds to take a few photos. Click over to Dandelion Haven's facebook page to see  more photos of the little pond and sky from this evening.

Wishing you many beautiful skies, and peace and happiness in the New Year!