January 7, 2010

A Walk in the Woods: Winter Patterns




The snow is still clinging, in decorative fashion, to surfaces in the woods, not blown away by winds or melted by warmth. It emphasizes the rhythms of spreading branches, which seem to move like graceful arms in a dance.






Dollops of snow sit at the top of small young pine trees, like whipped cream topping a sundae.






Islands and continents of snow adhere to tree bark, which is colored by the subtle greens of winter mosses and lichens.






Plastic pipe for sugaring draws bright lines on the subdued winter palette. I love seeing them in the woods as they are buoyant reminders of the flow of sap in early spring.

2 comments:

  1. Snowing here, too. But fairly heavy and landing on top of branches that are still bent over and glued to the ground from the first December snowstorm. We are trying to imagine the aftermath come Spring ... in some kind of positive fashion. In ten years we've had no serious loss of trees and shrubs just from snow damage, but this looks like it will be the year. It is much more pleasant to look at someone else's snowfall which always seems lovely!

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  2. There are times when we get damaging snows here in northeastern Vermont, but it hasn't happened yet this winter; each snow has been a few inches of fairly fluffy snow. It has been lovely, and we are lucky so far in this. I hope you don't get any more terrible storms, Linda, and I hope your trees and shrubs bounce back, as if from a good pruning.

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