The trees probably are as tired of winter as I am, with the heavy snow weighting down their branches most of the winter. They had a couple of days where they could lift their branches up again but it sure didn’t last long and they groaning under the snow again. So the snow monsters have returned again.
Snow Monster
The slightly warmer day (still below freezing) but above zero, was very foggy and with mist in the air, the trees and many objects were coated in frost. It always amazes me how the frost can build ten times or more in thickness than the object or limb it is forming on. It looks like rigid ice but if you bump the branch, the frost quickly falls off and the photo opportunity disappears until the next frosty winter day.
Frosted Branch
Once the grandeur of the autumn’s color display is over and before the white coat of winter sets in, there is period of starkness; bare trees, lack of colorful wildflowers and a landscape brown instead of green.
Late Fall Starkness
With October around the corner, more and more “leaf peepers” will be out looking at the color leaves and most people will be looking up and the tree trunk will be ignored. It stands there silently supporting all the limbs that display the beautiful autumn leaves but it is often overlooked and forgotten.
Forgotten Tree Trunk
This old dead tree looks like there is a critter head coming out of the top of the tree.
Critter Tree
Old Crooked Tree
Old dead tree stands all gnarled and worn,
Its brittle limbs all battered and torn.
The passing centuries it has seen
When it was still mighty strong and green.
The marvelous stories it could tell
When critters would stop to rest a spell.
The youthful days when life was prime
Has withered since near the end of time.
Wind and storms try to force it to fall,
Old crooked tree barely standing tall.
Sheri Erickson, 7/23/13
Old Crooked Tree
Spring officially arrived yesterday when the temperature finally got above 60 and the warm wind brought the return of the bluebirds. The robins, red winged blackbirds, wood thrushes, killdeers, grouse, chickadees, warblers, woodpeckers, cardinals and finches were all singing announcing spring but the loudest voice was the chorus of frogs who had emerged from the cold of winter.
Another sign that spring had finally arrived was the pussy willows catkins merging. Before the male catkins of these species come into full flower they are covered in fine, grayish fur, leading to a fancied likeness to tiny cats, also known as “pussies”. The catkins appear long before the leaves, and are one of the earliest signs of spring. Even though I had to walk through snow to find these pussy willows, finding them is definitely a sign that winter may be over.
Pussy Willows
On April 24, 1916, Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organize a rescue for the ice-trapped ship Endurance. After four rescue attempts, Shackleton made it back to Elephant Island on August 30.
The Endurance became trapped in the Weddell Sea in February 1915 and the expedition had to abandon ship at the end of October. The ice condition made it difficult to travelthan a mile a day so the party camped on the ice waiting for the ice to breakup. Finally in April 1916 the crew made it to Elephant Island and remained there until their rescue in August. It would be more than 40 years before the first crossing of Antarctica was achieved, by the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1955–58.
After some icy winter days here, there is no way I want to endure the Antarctic ice!
Icy Tree
It looks like Mother Nature pulled the April Fool’s joke this year since it snowed on Easter and there is still several feet of that white stuff on the ground!
April Fools
Some of the oak trees are trying to hang on to autumn as long as possible, and so they provide a little color in the white winter.
Oaks Hanging On
