Yesterday, when I drove to work, everything was coated with hoarfrost, making the trees look like diamond-bright winter caricatures of their leafy green summer selves. No chance to take photos, since I didn’t have a camera with me, and the frost had melted by evening.
Crisp and clear and blindingly sunny today; our backyard is a pristine white blanket of snow. I filled the bird feeder and hung it in front of the kitchen window. There are no berries on anything, the birds have stripped every bush and tree clean. Most of the birds I saw today were sitting hunched and puffed on branches, conserving their energy: it’s COLD. I could hear songbirds singing and saw little finches in the lilacs along the snail trail. They all went about their business as long as I was moving, but the second I slowed down to look more closely at them or raised my camera, off they flew. The 2 dogs I passed today, out walking with their owners, were HUGE. A giant stately black Great Dane and a massive Mastiff with a head twice the size of my own.
I forgot a scarf so by the time I reached the snail trail I was tucking my chin and lower face down into my parka and fogging up my glasses with every breath. For the most part it was so quiet! No kids out sledding on the hill above our neighborhood; it’s developed a belly-slammer of a drop-off right in the middle of the slope. I took a few photos before getting the exhausted batteries warning on the screen, and one quick 360-degree movie of my walk, where I stopped back behind the new meadow and turned in a circle. That’s not a laser in the video: it’s the sun! Bizarre effect, though. Beam me up, Scotty!
Click here for a quick 360 degrees on a winter walk in Flyinge
They’re watching you!
Snowy snail trail
There’s a little creek that runs along the snail trail. It’s frozen over (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was frozen solid), but that hasn’t stopped scores of small animals from venturing down to try their luck for a drink.
*Title from a poem by Ogden Nash