Life in the Bristolwood

Yes, the temperatures are beginning the upward swing that the weatherman predicted!

I had hoped to catch some good photos today, but once again, other duties beckoned.  As I was about to saunter to the mailbox, I did reach for my Nikon. Even when I am pressed for time, there are photos to be taken, after all!

I passed the Explorer sitting in the driveway….the question is…..was the Explorer crying from the cold, or, was it sweating in the heat of the sunshine pounding down upon its dark exterior? I took this photo about noon, and it was still very cold. We didn’t press into double digits until about 1 or 2 this afternoon!

I ambled on down the road to the area where Ben and I took photos of the ice formations the other day.  Instead of seeing water trickling around and through beautiful ice sculptures, the water that normally rushes over that big flat rock looked as though it was frozen…..suddenly and almost violently!

Since I only had the 18mm-55mm lens on the camera, I was going to close in a little by walking towards the area above. Stupid move! I had forgotten about the town’s “double ditch” effort alongside the road. For one reason or another, a couple of years ago, the superintendent of highways had a second ditch dug along the road. This ditch isn’t nearly the depth of the first ditch, but as I stepped off the road, my legs sank down and my memory quickly recalled that dumb ditch. God forbid a car ever loses control and ends up there, although it would be less dangerous than the deep boulder-filled ditch beyond it with a depth that would easily “swallow” a whole car!

The photo above was taken at the end of the driveway, looking westward.  It was so cold, but the sky was mostly clear and blue all day.

The last photo…well, I suppose you can guess what that is?

I had better rephrase that….Baby, it is bone-chillin’, frigidly FREEZING out there!

I took the Scottie boys out just after 6:30 this morning. I peeked out the front window just to see whether I needed to dress warmly or not and discovered the thermometer was reading “0″! Zero degrees Fahrenheit is cold!

We worked our way onto the frozen tundra and my short-legged companions looked as though they were perhaps trying to invent a new way of walking without their feet actually touching the ground!

There was precipitation in the air….it gave the illusion of walking into a spider web. I guess it was superfine snow coming down more like spun fibres than individual snowflakes.  As I walked through a light dusting of snow, the crunching sound seemed to resonate throughout the entire woods.  A brisk breeze produced a startlingly amazing noise in the still leaf-clad oak…it resembled bones rattling, as opposed to leaves being moved about by a breeze!

The Scotties hopped about and their flexi-leads pulled me back towards the porch. They were anxious to get back inside the house to the warmth of the woodstove! I brought them inside, then headed back out the door with my camera.

I tried and tried different techniques to capture that fine snow coming down, but it just evaded the sharp sensors in my camera. I captured little “tracers” in which one could see “streaks” of snow, but they just weren’t right. When it is this cold outside, the snow that falls onto the ground produces that light-giving appearance of diamond “fields”!

I noticed that the house and garage both had little patches of snow stuck onto them, reminding me of the Hollywood fake snow that gets sprayed about in winter scenes to give wintry effects.  The wreath on the garage had not looked so nice since I put it up shortly before Christmas!

As I walked about in the cold, it was awesome how quiet everything appeared. The noises from the crunching underfoot and the leaves rattling seemed as though magnified….amplified!  It is almost unfathomable that by this weekend the temperatures are predicted to rise well above freezing! Off now to dress warmly. I am thinking I just might venture out and see about taking some photos. This cold weather offers some awesome photo ops!