December 25, 2010

A Walk in the Woods: White Christmas





Sometimes December in northern Vermont is very bleak: bare gray muddy ground, dried yellow-gray grasses under heavy gray skies. But this year we are lucky in the weather; we've had small amounts of fluffy snow that have added up to a few inches, and with light winds, the snow still rests on branches in decorative fashion, and brightens the entire landscape. Branches become doubled lines in space, dark and light, and even downed trees seem to be waving their arms gracefully.






Today, Christmas day, and yesterday, when I took these photos, we even had some thin sun in the afternoon which added cheer and brilliance to the snow. Trees, small and tiny, were dressed in white froth, looking like ball gowns on the frames of green needles.




Tree trunks also take part in the decorative spirit, as the splotches of snow adhere to bark in random fashion.




Turning homeward, through dark young trees I see my south-facing house lit by sun, shining a welcome.

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful, Altoon. Love your home. I have to ask: iis there a name for that window under the eaves? I have called them "coffin windows" but I havee no idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Andrée. I've called it a witch's window, having been told by a local person that was its name. According to Wikipedia, it's also known as a Vermont window because most of them are found here, but I sure have never heard anyone call it that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Christmas. Those little snow covered trees remind me of the Hans Christian Andersen story of The Fir Tree ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Happy Christmas, now past, to you too, Linda. I'll have to look up that story, as I don't know it.

    ReplyDelete