Fragile Beauty

I will miss the ice now that it is gone. There’s something so delicately beautiful about ice and frost.

I love the way crystals form and the colors are more vivid.

Frost on the windshield looks like leafy ferns and glittering silver.

The frost was still forming as I sat in my truck snapping photos. Little “pings” of new stars on the thick glass.

As pretty as it was, I still had to dig out the ice scraper and be the practical adult, destroying its fragile beauty in a few swipes at the cold glass.

Darn that we have to grow up and lose our fascination with the beauty of the cold. When we were children, all that snow and ice didn’t mean hardship or danger. We pulled on our socks, long underwear, boots and mittens, our hats and our heavy coats, and we went out to play until our toes were so cold they felt like they no longer belonged to our bodies. (I was always afraid I’d pull my boots off and find that my toes really had separated from my feet and were rolling around in my socks, frozen.)

All the contrasts: green grass, the pink flowers on the heather, the blue-white of ice and the red rocks in the water. If you stop to think about it, it is breathtakingly beautiful.

If you don’t try to think too much like an adult who has to get in a car and drive across town on roads that might have black ice on them.

Darn grown-ups anyway: always pointing out how inconvenient frost, ice and snow are.

Our clod snap is nearly over. We did not get the predicted 2-4″ of snow (no surprise: seems like the more the media hypes up a storm, the less likely it is to happen). There’s a little freezing rain out there and a chance of more of it tonight, but we’re slowly moving into a much warmer air flow.

The kid in me doesn’t want to let go of the frost and ice, but the adult in me is relieved.

Geese on Ice

I was not going to do another goose post. Well, OK, I took my camera to work because I keep hoping the Dusky Canada geese will show up again and I can snap a photo of them in comparison to the regular Canada geese. Only if they showed up would I blog about geese again.

But this happened.

Geese on Ice.

Geese looking regal on ice.

Geese skating on the ice, resting by the edge of the ice, flapping their wings on the ice.

Geese waiting for the ice to thaw.

They may have to wait another day: we have a storm moving in that will either drop the predicted 2-4 inches of snow or coat our world in freezing rain and more ice before the warmer air moves in and scours it all out.

Then we’ll be back in a pattern of short grey days with endless quantities of rain.

The geese like the rain.

It’s a Parade!

The geese are back.

The people in the cars are not happy about the geese being back. The woman in the black car waited until most of the geese were across the street, then forced her way through, separating the final four from the rest of the flock.

These stopped traffic, too. my walking partner & I waited until they were safely across before we continued our walk, lest we shoo them right back out into traffic.

I was going to take a photo of the goose poop, too, but sometimes I have a hard time explaining my photos to my walking partner. She thinks I’m a bit strange.

We dodge a lot of goose poop and I just wanted to share that fact with you. Lots and lots of goose poop.

I’m sure you can picture it without a photo.

Pinpointing Me

I had half a day off to go shopping today (this is an annual “gift” from my employer: all employes get one half day in December to shop). Shopping wasn’t all that wonderful, but the view of Mt Hood on my way home was.

So I stopped and snapped a photo from the West Linn side of the river.

Because the leaves are gone, you can even see Willamette Falls.

I got to studying this photo and realized I could see where I was standing in Oregon City when I took this photo.

I was standing right there, where the tip of the arrow is.

Of course, knowing I could pinpoint that vantage point, I had to look at the first photo again and see if I could pinpoint where I was standing today.

There I am. At the rest stop on I-205 Northbound.

Or was.

Anyway, it was a rare crisp, clear day. I think it got up to 30 degrees, but I wore long underwear today and it didn’t feel so bitter cold.

After I took the photo and did all that deep thinking about pin-pointing my vantage points, I did get some Christmas shopping done. But I hate the mall. Can I never have to go to the mall again?

Frozen Motion

We are under an Arctic high pressure. What this means is the days are very cold, but the sun is shining. There’s a breeze most of the time, which accelerates the wind chill. Nighttime temps are in the teens and daytime temps hover at freezing.

I’ve been in much colder weather, but that isn’t really the point. We can have a “colder than you” contest and the Portland Metro area would lose, hands down. Even when it’s cold like this, it isn’t colder than (you name your location).

What is unique is this: the sun is shining. No grey clouds, no overcast, no rain, no freezing rain (we hope). Sunshine is good. Sunshine makes me happy (thank you John Denver). I can deal with this weather simply because there is this shining white orb in the sky that is actually visible during the daytime.

The “deep freeze” also offers this:

The small pond behind the office where I work is freezing over.

Icicles cling to green grass.

The moving water merges with the frozen, creating patterns and trapping autumn leaves.

Motion is frozen. (I rather like this photo of stopped motion!)

An icy cascade fringed by blooming heather.

Shadows on the ice. (Hmmm: including me!)

An icy riffle.

Green grass, grey rocks.

So beautiful.

The Other Grandson

Everyone knows I have two grandsons who are currently living in our house. Zephan and Javan provide me with a lot of candid photos.

But I have another grandson who is every bit as adorable, smart, and kissable as those two. I just do not have the access to him that I have with the older boys. Justin lives far away, in Colorado, where his dad is a soldier.

My daughter-in-law shared some photos with me and I just have to share them with the world.

Kissable cheeks!

I’m not partial or anything. But that is an adorable little boy.

I’m liking this grandma stuff.

Winter Espalier

We missed some apples on the apple trees. They’re frozen now.

I was rather surprised that we missed so many apples on this one branch. They must have really blended in with the green leaves of the apple tree (which are now all brown and on the ground).

While I was snapping these photos of the forgotten apples, I realized that without the leafy green of the trees and all the other plants in the garden, you can actually make out the form of the espalier. We only have the two, but we hope to have many espalier fruit trees around the yard as time goes by.

They save on room, for one thing.

They form a nice fence around the garden.

Espalier is a horticultural form that my husband is very interested in. These two are his second and third such trees (we left his first behind when we moved from our former home to this one). I am not so much into it (looks like way too much work), but I enjoy the fruits of Don’s labors (pun intended).

Once, I attended a class on espalier with Don. The speaker did not like espalier where several varieties of apples are grafted onto one root stock and even discouraged it. But all of ours have been just that sort of graft. We have a total of  six varieties of apples on these two trees.

I am not going to attempt to explain espalier or get into some deep gardening discussion on it. I haven’t the first-hand knowledge, for one thing. They are Don’s trees and he tends them. I know enough that I could prune them and keep the wires taut.

There are several designs of espalier and a lot of resources, both on the Internet and in gardening books. It’s just another one of those things that I should pursue more in-depth but I haven’t taken the time to do (yet).

They do look pretty, however.

Murphy!

We had our real first frost yesterday and today. This morning, I thought I would run out and get photos of Don’s Bonsai in frost and call that the photo of the day.

Murphy went with me.

Murphy was invigorated by the cold and wanted to play “stick.”

I put my camera on “rapid shoot”.

Murphy sort of went crazy on me.

It was so funny. I took one photo, then set my camera on “rapid fire” and proceeded to follow him around the yard. he was sure I was playing with him, and he grabbed that darn stick.

It was hard to keep him in focus.

Later, as we were leaving a party, the hostess said, “I am so glad Murphy is doing better!”

Don turned to me and said, “Blogging?”

“Oh, yes, but good things about Murphy.” I didn’t tell him I was posting this tonight.

A Photo Poem

A simple walk.

A pair of geese on a pond. The sky reflected on the water.

Riffles on the surface of the water, softly distort the reflection.

Two Canada geese on a pond in the afternoon, swimming lazily, disturbing the reflection.

Go Green!

Grass is fascinating from an artist’s point of view. Try replicating this with paint or colored pencil or crayon. There are so many different colors and shades in there! I once had an “artist” friend who argued that “even the color purple is in grass.”

She may have been right, from an artistic point. Purple would certainly add depth!

I chose this photo for a couple reasons: 1) it is late and I have to get myself to bed and 2) green is the color of the University of Oregon Ducks.

I’m not even a football fan, but I want to shout out “Go Ducks!”

I’m married to a Beaver’s fan and my kids are Beaver’s fans and I rooted for the Beavers in tonight’s Civil War game (OSU vs. U of O). OSU lost by a close margin, and it was a beautiful game with a lot of good sporstmanship displayed. I wasn’t happy that the Ducks allowed Blount to play, but…

They won and they are headed to the Rose Bowl!

Congratulations University of Oregon Ducks! We’ll be rooting for you at the Rose Bowl!