A Very Short White Christmas!

Real winter almost happened: fluffy white snow covered the ground, truly cold temperatures kept the snow fresh and froze the ice on the ponds and lakes and decorated brookside banks with sparkling crystal.  Christmas Day, at least, looked like winter.  But even before the Christmas season could make it to Holy Family Sunday -- let alone Three Kings' Day -- it started raining.  The temps are above freezing today.  The white snow is replaced by white fog,  no crystalline ice decorates the creeks, although crystal-clear raindrops decorate the twigs of shrubs.

Ah well, at least the fog and the raindrops do offer their own kind of beauty:

A small island in the Hudson River at Moreau almost seems to be floating in a cloud.

Looking north on the Hudson toward the Adirondacks, is that a cloudbank floating above the distant mountains, or is it rising fog?

These evergreen boughs and twinkling raindrops have a lovely Christmassy appearance.

These Santa-red twigs look as if they were hung with Christmas lights.

Welcome Winter!

Today, on Winter Solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year, the sun begins its journey back to warm us. Moment by moment, day by day, its light will shine brighter, its rays will grow stronger, its presence will last measurable minutes longer.  And yet, each day, as the winter goes on, the cold will grow deeper, along (so I hope) with the snow.

I do love winter.  Especially ones with deep cold and deeper snow.  I want the lakes and the river bays to freeze thick and hard, so that I can safely cross their frozen expanses and make my way back into the swamps and marshes and bogs too muddy for exploring in summer.  I want the snow deep and soft in the woods, so that I can marvel at how many creatures pass there, coyotes and minks and foxes and fishers and bobcats and more, animals I would never know lived in these woods, if not for their tracks and trails.  I want nights so cold and clear I can see all the way to heaven, with stars so bright they pierce the eye, and sub-zero days with deep-blue skies and frost-spangled air that glitters with sequin snowflakes.

So yes, I do celebrate the return of the light and the promise it holds of warmer seasons to come.  But I also delight in all of the beauties of winter.  Here are just a few of them.

Without winter's cold, I could never find hoarfrost stars exploding from the surface of clear black ice.

Splashing brooks are lovely in every season, but only in the coldest winters can I find crystal chandeliers overhanging the banks.

And along the brook's edges, organdy-sheer plates of ice are surrounded by frozen froth.

Trumpets of glassy ice dangle from overhanging branches, and they glisten and gleam as light plays among their bells.

If we're lucky, the lake ice will freeze clear as crystal, revealing bubbles stacked like silver coins.

In the woods, mice embroider the snowy drifts with their dainty trails.

The warmer seasons gift us with a riot of colors, from the earliest spring flowers through midsummer's multicolored meadows to autumn's glorious display. By contrast, winter offers mostly a monotone palette of blacks, grays, and whites, like this full-color photo of a crabapple covered with snow.

All the more powerful, then, is the brilliant red of Winterberries, glowing through the snow. What a jolt of joy to behold!

I wish all my friends many jolts of joy as we celebrate this holiday season, whether you spend it cozy and warm by an indoor fire, or warmed by the effort of huffing and puffing through snowbanks. Here's one more photo to remind me of the pure beauty and exquisite silence of a snowy woods, when even at midday, the sun casts lengthening shadows across the snow.

Happy Solstice to All!  And a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy Whatever Winter Holiday you celebrate.  And a Happy New Year, too. But most of all, a happy Winter, enjoying all the delights the season has to offer.

The Ice Has Arrived!

Or it surely must have, my friends Sue Pierce and Dan Wall and I believed, when we met at Moreau Lake this past Friday, following several nights that were well below freezing.  But we found that most of the lake was still wide open, ice-free enough as yet to welcome large flocks of waterfowl.  A thin border of ice lined the shore, but it will be some time yet (and take much lower temperatures) before any ice fishermen can start auguring holes out on the lake's frozen surface, when the ice grows thick enough to bear their weight.

 

Ah well. . . .  At least recent rains and several inches of snowmelt had set Zen Brook to rushing again, as it tumbled down the mountainside.  Perhaps we would find some crystalline ornamentation along its banks.  We could hear the brook splashing merrily along as we approached.

And sure enough, as the water rushed along, it threw up enough spray to create dangling tongues of ice on overhanging branches.

Where mini-cascades splashed over rocks, fringes of icicles ornamented the mossy roots of creekside trees.

As we ascended the mountain slope, the brook's energy increased, as did the beauty of whitewater tumbling over and among craggy boulders.

We each of us stopped every few feet to observe and photograph the brook's both fluid and crystalline beauty.

The brook's bankside mosses and other vegetation were festooned with shining baubles and glittering icicles.

Overhanging branches grew heavy with multiple accretions of ice.

This fern frond was completely encased in crystal.

Tiny pools of crystal-clear open water bore floating bubbles that reflected the images of the sky and treetops above.

We later descended the mountain slope to walk along the shore as close as we could get to the water's edge.

The thin sheet of ice along the shore bore crinkles and swirls on its surface, and bubbles of different sizes had risen from below to be trapped in transparent crystal.

This photo reveals how utterly transparent was the ice along this shore. And also that we could not yet safely walk on it.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Well, it was for a day or two, anyway, following several inches of snowfall in Saratoga County.  The snow will probably all disappear this week as rain and rising temps arrive.  But for just a brief time, the woods and the waterways looked as pretty as a Christmas card.

A footpath at Saratoga Spa State Park was truly a winter wonderland!

The snow-dusted trees on the forested mountains along the Hudson River at Moreau were rendered twice as lovely when reflected in the still water.

This Christmas-tree-green frond of Marginal Wood Fern decorated the snowy ground in the woods at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. A brown leaf remnant shaped like a star added an especially seasonal touch.

In a swamp near the summit of Mount MacGregor, snowy mounds amplified the brilliance of Winterberry's scarlet fruits.

Wishing all my friends and followers a truly joyous holiday season, as well as a perfect winter of deep snow and safely-thick ice for enjoying all the marvels that this beautiful season can offer.

Ring, Christmas bells!