A Short Walk Through New Snow

I saw photos of folks digging out from deep snow further south of us, but just a few inches of soft fluffy stuff fell on us here in Saratoga --  easy to shovel and easy to walk through without snowshoes.  And it even felt kind of balmy today, with temps in the upper 20s. So I went for a walk on the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail, entering from the Meadowbrook Road trail head.  I had thought I might find hard ice in the marsh that would allow me to venture out into places too soggy for exploring in warmer months.  But the stream that follows the trail sure did not look frozen hard enough to walk on! So I stayed on the trail.

The snow had stopped falling when I first left home, but by the time I reached the trailhead a few miles from my house, the snow started falling again, filling the air with big soft flakes, gently drifting down.

Then it started falling harder and harder, with the wind picking up to drive the snow slanting through the trees that line the trail.

I walked as far as where a boardwalk crosses a pond.  The wind had relented by now, so the snow was  falling gently down once more.  The flakes didn't show up in a photo, though, until I set my camera on flash.

It was hard to photograph much of the trailside vegetation, with snow wetting both my camera's lens and view screen. I did take a shot of this Gray Dogwood shrub, its berries long devoured by birds but the spidery pedicels still decorating the ends of the twigs.

I'm always pleased to see the remains of Turtlehead flower spikes.  The empty seed pods look a bit like stacks of pistachio shells.  And of course they inspire pleasant memories of the fascinating white florets that bloom on these stalks in late summer.  Ah, summer!  Here's hoping by summer we'll all be free to mingle with family and friends once more. I do feel lonelier and lonelier as the months of this pandemic wear on.

I think it's that loneliness that has stolen some of the joy that used to lighten the dark days of winter for me. I'm aware that I've not embraced winter days as I once did.  All I need to do is look over my blog posts from nearly a dozen winters past to note how my enthusiasm for the season has faltered this year.  The gray skies and drab foliage remnants seem to better reflect my current mood.  I searched and searched for some colors today, and eventually I was rewarded by the deep-red twigs of Red Osier Dogwood and the vivid chartreuse of tree trunks decorated with Green Shield Lichen.

And see how vivid the ruddy brown leaves of a young American Beech appear, a surprise of cheerful color against the otherwise black-and-white of the winter woods.