Snow Day

Ah, at last! We've got eight inches of powder on the ground after yesterday's snowy day.   The air is so calm that the spruce branches seem to just hover under their white flocking, waiting to be launched.

This morning we got the shoveling done and I'm happy that it really is a light powdery snow.  Much easier to fling. Also, it won't weigh down the twigs of the bushes and make them split. We had some serious breakage in last February's blizzard.

I can now confidently gaze out the windows and see all that 'winter interest'! Boy, do I need more evergreen shrubs. There's a lot of naked bark out there! The most popular place has been the herb bed as I left the basil, fennel, marjoram, and assorted others to go to seed. The chickadees and sparrows have been busy, so it's pretty cleaned out. I refilled the bird feeder and flung some under the lilac tree for the ground feeding juncos.

This is the front flower bed (with the damn gas meter). So pretty in a fresh snow.

New Eyes: Seeing the Landscape

I'm sorry. I've been down with the Evil Head Cold of Doom and so haven't had the brain power to string two sentences together until now. Pass me a hankie!

It's January in Chicagoland and this year we have not been graced with measurable snow. It looks a lot like this:

Pretty bleak, eh? Well, maybe. What catches my eye in winter is what is left when the ordinary greenery is stripped away. This is a typical intersection in my town. I was sitting at the stoplight and so had a chance to snap a quick picture. What leaps out at me this time of year are the grand old evergreens. Here we have Norway spruce, Austrian pine and white pine among others. Their quiet dark dignity really shows up this time of year. And that splash of deep red over on the left? That's a crabapple loaded with berries. Isn't it pretty?

This winter, take a few moments to stop and look around your landscape. What kinds of trees, shrubs, grasses, etc. stand out? Enjoy those big old evegreens now before they steal back into the background in spring.