“On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Seven Swans A-Swimming.” The recent frigid and upcoming arctic temperature, the swans won’t find much open water to go swimming and might freeze in the ice if they don’t keep moving.
Seven Swans A-Freezing
“On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree.”
Well the song lyrics just don’t work for me since I don’t have a true love, the coyote ate the partridge and it has to be a very hardy pear tree to survive in my area and it would be a bare tree this time of year.
Bare Tree
When I was in grade school, it was our job to cut the Christmas from our planting of pine trees for a windbreak the first day school let out fro Christmas break. But since it was a windbreak, we could only take a tree where the trees were too thick so that meant a ‘Charlie Brown’ type of tree, which was usually flat on one side. The Charlie Brown tree did work well in a small room since the flat side could be pushed tight to the wall. One problem with the tree was that it would always grow after we cut it by the time we got to the house door!
This leaning tree might have fit into the Charlie Brown category since the deer rubbed off several rows of branches, although the gap is covered with the heavy snow laden branches, but since the tree was on the end of the row, it would have been safe from being a Christmas tree.
No clear, sunny sky for this Christmas Eve Day but then I suppose that means it won’t be real cold tonight for Santa’s reindeer but if Santa can bring the sun for our present, I think a lot of people would be happy.
Christmas Eve Tree
Rain yesterday, snow today. I guess Old Man Winter has returned but I still prefer the softly flowing waterfalls to the big falling snowflakes.
Streaking Snowflakes
According to the calendar, winter has officially started, but Old Man Winter doesn’t know he is doing since for a while this morning it was raining, or actually freezing rain, but now it is snowing again. And snowing means another cloudy day which is about the fifteen day straight day of no sun – I am starting to wonder if it still exists.
Start of Winter
When traveling around the countryside, you often see similar barns in an area either in the foundation or shape or style. And a few miles away, another pocket of barn style will appear, including this style of having the extra pattern at the ends of the barn. The upper half does stand out farther than the lower boards so I don’t know if they just lapped the upper boards or if they are thicker boards on the top half. Most of the barn in this style have the half moon window at the peak and the other other windows but some have a more flowing curve pattern to make then different from their neighbors. Sometimes you don’t notice the extra pattern when the barn wall is painted the same color instead of the two-tone pattern.
Decorative Barn Wall
Just like children, the batch of kittens at the farm were outside last night trying to catch the snowflakes coming down. But besides catching snowflakes, they were also chasing each other and running under my vehicle and when the majority of the kittens are black and it was dark out, that doesn’t make for the the best combination. It is much easier to spot black kittens in the daylight on the white snow.
Black on White
Some winter sunsets can be pretty but they are also often very cold and the camera battery doesn’t last long in the colder temperatures (and sometimes the photographer doesn’t stay outside in the cold either).
Cold Winter Sunset
The temperature for yesterday’s Thanksgiving was the coldest since 1930. I sure would have rather be looking at the ice caves yesterday if it was going to be that cold instead of snowing snow in the very chilly air.
Icy Waterfall
It looks like this turkey is trying to sneak quietly through the woods to avoid being the main course at someone’s Thanksgiving dinner.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving!
